House Democrats Release Clean Water Report on the 44th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act
Washington, D.C.—Today, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Democrats released a new report detailing the House Republican failure to protect the health of our rivers, streams, lakes, and coastal waters from pollution and contamination. The report, titled “The Party of Pollution: An Analysis of the Republican Majority’s Failure to Protect Clean Water”, also highlights years of Republican attacks on the Clean Water Act, which celebrates its 44th anniversary today.
“Unfortunately, the Republican Majority in Congress has done all it can to slow the progress in cleaning up the Nation’s waters, and has taken aggressive steps to undermine the successes already achieved – to virtually eliminate any Federal ‘safety-net’ in protecting the Nation’s water-related environment. Whether through direct legislative proposals to repeal Clean Water Act safeguards, through efforts to restrict or eliminate funding for implementing or enforcing the Nation’s environmental laws, or by hampering the Obama administration’s efforts to clarify the scope of the protected waters, the Republican Majority has led the charge to undermine one of the Nation’s most popular environmental statutes characterizing it as too bureaucratic, too expensive, and bad for American business,” the report states.
The Republican Majority of the U.S. House of Representatives has continually cut Federal funding to critical environmental authorities and programs under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, such as the Clean Water Act – prioritizing budget cuts over infrastructure investment. For example, during the last eight years, Congressional funding for the primary Clean Water infrastructure program – the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) – has declined by more than 30 percent. These decisions jeopardize the reliability of our critical water-related infrastructure, our Nation’s economic and environmental health, and the well-being of future generations. Coupled with dangerously inadequate funding for the Act’s clean water programs, the latest policy proposals put forth by the Republican Majority have involved a slow, but steady, dismantling of the Act itself. Whether through direct legislative proposals to repeal many of the safeguards of the Act, through efforts to restrict or eliminate funding for Federal agencies responsible for implementing or enforcing the Nation’s environmental laws, or by hampering the Obama administration’s efforts to promote Federal protection over the Nation’s waters, the Republican Majority has led the charge to undermine one of our country’s premier environmental statutes.
For example, the Republican Majority:
- Presided over the steady decline of Federal protections over the Nation’s waters, as well as, multiple attempts to disrupt the Obama administration’s development and implementation of the Clean Water Protection Rule;
- Pushed to impose new regulatory requirements on Federal agencies that would block efforts to implement or enforce critical environmental, public health, and safety laws;
- Failed to support solutions to emerging water quality challenges, such as the 33 square-mile harmful algal bloom in May 2016 in Lake Okeechobee, Florida; the harmful algal bloom that covered a 636-mile stretch of the Ohio River in September 2015; or the harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie in May 2014 that covered the drinking water intake for the City of Toledo, Ohio, and led to a drinking water ban that impacted 400,000 of the Toledo’s residents;
- Ignored efforts to modernize programs to address nonpoint source pollution – the greatest continuing source of impairment to the Nation’s waters; and
- Hijacked the public-health crisis of the Zika virus to weaken Federal and State laws to monitor and minimize the impacts of pesticides on water quality.
The full report, and additional information about the Republican attacks on clean water, can be found here.
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