Washington, D.C. — The following are opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, from Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen (D-WA) and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA) during today’s hearing titled, “Waters of the United States Implementation Post-Sackett Decision: Experiences and Perspectives.”
Video of Ranking Member Larsen’s and Napolitano’s opening statements are here and here.
More information on the hearing can be found here.
Ranking Member Larsen:
My home state of Washington is defined by its clean water, from Puget Sound to the hundreds of lakes and thousands of miles of rivers and streams.
Washingtonians know that protecting these rivers, streams and wetlands takes work, and that the health of our water bodies are intertwined.
Our waters and our water-related economy depend on the historic protections of the Clean Water Act and its pollution-prevention programs.
It is more effective and less costly to prevent pollution than to clean up pollution. This is true in Washington state, and it is true across the nation.
When Congress passed the Clean Water Act over 50 years ago, Members recognized the effectiveness and importance of comprehensive pollution prevention measures—stopping pollution before it happens rather than simply cleaning it up.
The Clean Water Act was enacted on an overwhelming and bipartisan basis. Before this law, rivers and lakes served as little more than open sewers—Lake Erie was pronounced “dead,” and Ohio’s Cuyahoga River literally caught on fire.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act, the Cascade River in my district was recently designated as an Outstanding Resource Water by the State of Washington, which now protects the river from any future activities or development that would degrade water quality.
In passing the CWA, Congress specifically noted that a state-by-state, do-it-alone approach was “inadequate in every vital aspect” and left waters severely polluted and expensive to restore.
For decades, Republicans and Democrats shared these bipartisan principles to defend clean water: maintain a strong federal-state partnership to protect our waters; stop pollution from entering the system in the first place; and support a robust federal floor of protections while allowing states to do more, but not less.
After the Sackett decision, the robust federal protections for our nation’s waters have been eliminated for more than 50 percent of wetlands and up to 70 percent of streams.
History has shown that a lack of strong federal water quality protections makes it difficult and expensive for states to protect their waters if neighboring states adopt a lesser standard.
States are now faced with a decision on how to handle pollution of the countless, non-navigable streams, lakes and wetlands once protected by the Clean Water Act.
Some states will meet this challenge by establishing new state-level water quality standards for unprotected wetlands and streams, as the State of Colorado has done.
Other states will choose to do nothing, or worse, pull back on state-level protections, like the State of North Carolina, leaving critical waters completely unprotected.
Without uniform national protections, downstream states will be negatively impacted by pollution from upstream sources if neighboring states choose not to pass new protections.
Last Congress, we passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, affirming our commitment to improving infrastructure. The BIL included significant investments in water infrastructure—providing $13.8 billion in federal dollars for upgrading wastewater systems, preventing pollution discharges and supporting restoration programs in places like the Puget Sound.
These investments are critical, providing a lifeline to communities across the country struggling to maintain water quality.
Such a large federal investment was a downpayment to address the backlog of water infrastructure needs across the country.
The Sackett decision reduces the effectiveness of these investments and reduces the federal role in the successful partnership that has been the Clean Water Act. If we are to maintain the same historic protections, states will have to step up and spend more resources on protecting water quality.
Unfortunately, states will be doing so from scratch, without the decades of experience of EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers.
In this post-Sackett world, we must find ways to leverage federal experience in assisting states that are stepping up to maintain water quality protections.
Congress can do its job, as well, and legislate a solution. Passing the Clean Water Act of 2023, a bill I introduced in partnership with Ranking Member Napolitano, would restore the historic, bipartisan protections that the Sackett decision removed.
Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today, and I look forward to your testimony.
Ranking Member Napolitano:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding me this time.
For the past 26 years, I have made the protection and preservation of water a primary focus of my time in Congress.
In the arid west, where annual droughts have become an unfortunate consequence of a warming planet, I have worked to make our communities more resilient to climate change, such as ensuring my communities are prepared for their current and future water needs.
I have worked with local officials to promote the conservation, recycling, and reuse of every drop of water available.
Knowing of these ongoing water challenges that may soon face every community, I grow frustrated with the heated and often-misguided rhetoric on the scope of waters protected by the Clean Water Act.
In my view, we get lost on questions of who is best suited to protect our water resources, rather than talking about the importance of rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands for current and future needs.
Mr. Chairman, clean water was not always a partisan issue, and no issue has more support among American families than the protection of our nation’s waters.
Yet, in recent years, the issue of comprehensive Clean Water Act protections has become so politicized that it has become increasingly difficult to find any commonalities.
For example, this issue is prominently highlighted in the extreme Project 2025 manifesto.
It has been the focus of two failed Congressional Review Act efforts to overturn vital clean water protections.
And, recently, decades-old water protections have fallen to a Supreme Court that, time-and-again, substitutes its own conservative philosophies for established legal precedent or clear statements of Congressional intent.
In the aftermath, we are left with a nation less prepared to protect its precious water resources and less capable of ensuring the long-term health and resiliency of our communities, our neighbors and future generations.
Mr. Chairman, history has shown that the current, state-by-state approach to protecting rivers, streams and wetlands is likely to fail as it did before enactment of the Clean Water Act.
Without minimum levels of protection, states will be negatively impacted by pollution from upstream sources if neighboring states choose not to put the same priority on protecting water resources.
Without minimum levels of protection, farmers, businesses and communities may no longer rely on sufficient, safe and sustainable supplies of water to meet our quality-of-life needs, our economic and agricultural needs and our day-to-day survival, especially in the arid regions of the country.
Without minimum levels of protection, American families may be forced to pay more for safe and reliable sources of drinking water for their homes, if such sources even remain available.
Without minimum standards of protection, businesses will face differing requirements and standards in every state or community, likely increasing the complexity and cost of doing business—which will, again, result in higher prices for American families.
Mr. Chairman, in my remaining time Congress, I remain committed to protecting clean water for more people, not less.
I believe the Supreme Court purposefully chose to substitute its own philosophy over decades-old, legally grounded efforts to protect water quality.
That is why I joined with Ranking Member Larsen, Congressman Beyer, and Congresswoman Stansbury, in introducing the Clean Water Act of 2023.
I believe this bill will restore the minimum levels of protections struck down by the conservative Supreme Court and put back into place the successful and predictable federal-state partnership which protected our rivers, streams, and wetlands for over five decades—all while providing predictability and certainty to American businesses.
To me, the answer is clear. We should recognize the familiarity and workability of the historic Clean Water Act and get on with the preservation of the health of our economy as well as our communities, our environment and our water-dependent futures.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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