{ "id": "R41225", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "number": "R41225", "active": false, "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department", "versions": [ { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 375078, "date": "2010-12-29", "retrieved": "2016-04-07T01:17:15.118075", "title": "Legislative Approaches to Defining \u201cWaters of the United States\u201d", "summary": "In the 111th Congress, legislation was introduced that sought to clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) in the wake of Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 that interpreted the law\u2019s jurisdiction more narrowly than prior case law. The Court\u2019s narrow interpretation involved jurisdiction over some geographically isolated wetlands, intermittent streams, and other waters. The two cases are Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC) and Rapanos v. United States.\nBills to nullify the Court\u2019s rulings have been introduced repeatedly since the 107th Congress, but none had advanced until the 111th Congress. In June 2009, a Senate committee approved S. 787, the Clean Water Restoration Act. Companion legislation in the House, H.R. 5088 (America\u2019s Commitment to Clean Water Act), was introduced in April 2010. No further legislative action occurred on either bill.\nUnder current law, the key CWA phrase which sets the act\u2019s reach is the phrase \u201cnavigable waters,\u201d defined to mean \u201cthe waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.\u201d Proponents of the current legislation contend that the Court misread Congress\u2019s intent when it enacted the CWA, and consequently the Court\u2019s ruling unduly restricted the scope of the act\u2019s water quality protections. Both S. 787 and H.R. 5088 would have replaced the phrase \u201cnavigable waters\u201d in the CWA with \u201cwaters of the United States\u201d and would have installed a definition of \u201cwaters of the United States,\u201d not found in the law now. The bills differed in how they would define the phrase. The Senate committee bill included a definition drawn from one paragraph of existing federal regulatory text, while H.R. 5088 included a longer definition based on the same regulatory language, but with some modifications. Both bills also included provisions affirming the constitutional basis for the act\u2019s jurisdiction. These provisions were intended to address the concern that the Court\u2019s rulings, while decided on statutory grounds, raised related questions about the outer limits of Congress\u2019s power to regulate waters with little or no connection to traditional navigable waters under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.\nProponents of the legislation, including many states and environmental advocacy groups, contended that the Court\u2019s ruling in these cases, and subsequent regulatory guidance by federal agencies, have unsettled several decades\u2019 worth of case law, misreading or ignoring congressional intent, and thus reinterpreting and narrowing the jurisdictional scope of the act. Supporters said that the intention was to return to the CWA regulatory jurisdiction that prevailed before the Court\u2019s rulings. On the other hand, critics, including many industry groups and development and home builder organizations, contended that the legislation would greatly expand federal regulatory jurisdiction of the CWA beyond interpretations that existed before the two Supreme Court rulings, not simply reaffirm congressional intent. They were concerned that the legislation, were it enacted, had the potential to be interpreted far more broadly than what was previously understood to be jurisdictional\u2014thus causing more uncertainty, rather than clarifying the issue.\nBetween proponents and critics, there was wide disagreement whether the new statutory definition proposed in either bill, coupled with other changes, would achieve the objective of clarity and certainty that has been broadly desired. In light of the differing views on the issues, future prospects for similar legislation in the 112th Congress are highly uncertain. The legal and policy questions associated with the SWANCC and Rapanos cases\u2014concerning the outer geographic limits of CWA jurisdiction and consequences of restricting that scope\u2014have challenged regulators, landowners and developers, and policymakers for more than 35 years.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": false, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R41225", "sha1": "06fc82f4602ba98b9d1b4828956531df1017863d", "filename": "files/20101229_R41225_06fc82f4602ba98b9d1b4828956531df1017863d.html", "images": null }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R41225", "sha1": "9ffaaee8c3e28f9bc0422cda55a7afa3a690fd51", "filename": "files/20101229_R41225_9ffaaee8c3e28f9bc0422cda55a7afa3a690fd51.pdf", "images": null } ], "topics": [] }, { "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department", "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc501952/", "id": "R41225_2010Apr30", "date": "2010-04-30", "retrieved": "2015-03-30T22:03:27", "title": "Legislative Approaches to Defining \"Waters of the United States\"", "summary": "This report seeks to clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) in the wake of Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 that interpreted the law's jurisdiction more narrowly than prior case law.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORT", "active": false, "formats": [ { "format": "PDF", "filename": "files/20100430_R41225_23379091b258e17589ef348ebda58cd61ea9bf6a.pdf" }, { "format": "HTML", "filename": "files/20100430_R41225_23379091b258e17589ef348ebda58cd61ea9bf6a.html" } ], "topics": [ { "source": "LIV", "id": "Water law and legislation", "name": "Water law and legislation" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Water resources", "name": "Water resources" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Water quality", "name": "Water quality" } ] } ], "topics": [ "Constitutional Questions" ] }