35 Democrats Join House GOP to Weaken the Clean Water Act by Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees

Yesterday, House Republicans made their latest effort to weaken environmental regulations. This time, it was with a bill to prohibit the EPA from using a new rule proposed in March for policymaking. The rule was designed to clarify which bodies of water, such as wetlands and streams, are subject to the EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act. Republicans, unsurprisingly, viewed this as a massive federal overreach.

Here is the conclusion from the dissent written by Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources:

We recognize that there is a tremendous amount of confusion and uncertainty surrounding the reach and application of the Clean Water Act, today. Unfortunately, this confusion and uncertainty comes with a real cost to the general public.

First, the confusion and uncertainty has resulted in increased compliance costs and delays in implementing projects and activities covered by the Act's permitting provisions. In addition, the confusion and uncertainty has resulted in the loss of Clean Water Act protections for countless waterbodies that were covered prior to 2001. This loss of protection has left waterbodies that were once protected under Federal law vulnerable to potential polluters. The confusion and uncertainty has also placed at risk the drinking water sources of approximately 177 million Americans that rely on surface waters for all or a portion of their drinking water supply.

Not surprisingly, stakeholders from the regulated community, the conservation and the environmental communities, as well as members of the Supreme Court, have called on Federal agencies to clarify the reach and application of the Clean Water Act.
Clarity is essential to the regulated public so they can understand and meet their legal obligations under the Clean Water Act, and avoid unnecessary project delays and the associated increased compliance costs. Likewise, clarity is essential to the American public so they are assured that water quality is uniformly protected, regardless of what state or region of the country the water is located.

Yet, H.R. 5078 ignores these demands for clarity, and instead proposes to freeze-in-time an existing 2008 guidance document that the regulated community has characterized as “causing confusion and added delays in an already burdened and strained permit decision-making process which ultimately will result (and is resulting) in increased delays and costs to the public at large.”

This legislation also makes future agency rulemaking efforts more complicated, more costly, and more susceptible to additional litigation and challenges, which is contrary to calls from both the regulated community and conservation and environmental organizations for a public rulemaking.

Prudence demands that the Federal agencies utilize every means of the regulatory process available to clarify the application and reach of the Clean Water Act in accordance with the precedent of the Supreme Court. The Obama administration has honored the requests of Congress, the Court, and stakeholders from across the spectrum, to initiate a public rulemaking to provide this clarity; however, that effort (and future efforts) would be stymied by H.R. 5078.

In our view, H.R. 5078 makes no effort to improve the current regulatory process, and, in fact, may make the regulatory process more cumbersome and confusing. This legislation perpetuates the increased costs and delay experienced by the regulated community, as well as the confusion and uncertainly felt by the general public whether large categories of waterbodies are at increased risk of pollution or degradation.

In our view, this is the wrong approach—both for addressing the confusion caused by the Supreme Court decisions as well as for achieving the goals of fishable and swimmable waters called for in the Clean Water Act.

For these reasons, we oppose H.R. 5078.

You can read the full dissent here. 

The so-called Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act passed 262 to 152. 227 Republicans and 35 Democrats voted for it. 151 Democrats and 1 Republican (Chris Smith of New Jersey’s 4th) voted against it.

Who were the 35 Democrats?

Ron Barber (AZ-02)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Sanford Bishop (GA-02)
Cheri Bustos (IL-17)
Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
Jim Clyburn (SC-06)
Jim Costa (CA-16)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Bill Enyart (IL-12)
Sam Farr (CA-20)
Marcia Fudge (OH-11)
Pete Gallego (TX-23)
John Garamendi (CA-03)
Joe Garcia (FL-26)
Gene Green (TX-29)
Alcee Hastings (FL-23)
Steven Horsford (NV-04)
Robin Kelly (IL-02)
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01)
David Loebsack (IA-02)
Jim Matheson (UT-04)
Mike McIntyre (NC-07)
Gloria Negrette McLeod (CA-35)
Bill Owens (NY-21)
Collin Peterson (MN-07)
Nick Rahall (WV-03)
Cedric Richmond (LA-02)
Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
David Scott (GA-13)
Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)
Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Marc Veasey (TX-33)
Filemon Vela (TX-34)
Tim Walz (MN-01)

Tim Bishop (NY-01) offered an amendment to prevent enactment of the bill if its implementation would harm water quality.

It failed 170 to 240.

228 Republicans and 12 Democrats voted against it. 170 Democrats voted for it.

Here are the 12 Democrats who voted against it.

John Barrow (GA-12)
Sanford Bishop (GA-02)
Jim Costa (CA-16)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Bill Enyart (IL-12)
Gene Green (TX-29)
Jim Matheson (UT-04)
Bill Owens (NY-21)
Collin Peterson (MN-07)
Nick Rahall (WV-03)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
David Scott (GA-13)

The White House issued a veto threat to the bill, noting that it "would derail current efforts to clarify the scope of the CWA, hamstring future regulatory efforts, and create significant ambiguity regarding existing regulations and guidance."