Wetlands near Annette Nature Center in Warren County. (Photo: Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a bill that Republicans say will reform the Clean Water Act and eliminate regulatory burdens.
Democrats and environmental groups say the Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today, or the PERMISSION Act, protects water polluters and removes tidy water protections.
The PERMITS Act would redefine “navigable waters” — a term key to defining waters protected by the Clean Water Act — and exclude wastewater treatment systems, streams flowing solely in direct response to rainfall, previously converted farmland, groundwater and other items decided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Republican-sponsored bill was almost passed entirely along party lineswith six Democrats and one Republican voting against their party.
Rep. Sam Graves, R-Missouri, who co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Mike Collins, D-Georgia, said the Clean Water Act’s permitting “regime” is “broken.”
Graves noted the time it takes to approve some of the permits covered by the act and said states could “weaponize” the act to stop infrastructure projects like the pipeline.
Graves said the bill would make reforms that would prevent “weaponization” of the act, establish a clear timeline for judicial review, enhance transparency in the development of water quality standards and codify “long-standing bipartisan exceptions” to the definition of waters of the United States or waters protected by the Clean Water Act.
“Without reform of the Clean Water Act, America will not be able to effectively build the roads, bridges, pipelines, ponds or dams, levees, airports, homes, farms and other infrastructure we need,” Graves said. “This bill recognizes that we can both protect our natural resources and enable development that benefits everyone in this country.”
Republicans argued on the floor that the bill would enhance efficiency, cut red tape, unlock economic growth and enhance affordability across the country.
Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., who led the opposition to the bill on the floor, agreed that the Clean Water Act, especially its permitting provisions, needed reform. But, she said, the PERMITS Act is “not that.”
Scholten said the bill would shift the cost of tidy water away from polluters and onto “rural America, tribes and disadvantaged communities.”
“We need reforms, but this bill is not what we need,” Scholten said. “Not only does this cut down on red tape, but it also cuts down on all the tape that has protected our clean water for 50 years since the Clean Water Act was passed.”
Scholten and other Democrats on the floor argued that the bill would lead to more water pollution, higher water bills and a reduction in the state’s ability to control pollution within its borders.
Iowa groups say the Congressional Delegations Act would “gut” the Clean Water Act
“Efficiency is important; American industry will fail and families will suffer if unnecessary bureaucracy gets in the way of innovation and buildings,” said Republican Kristen McDonald Rivet, also a Democrat from Michigan. “But by cutting red tape, we must do it wisely, not in a way that puts clean water at risk.”
The bill would set deadlines for judicial review of certain permits. Supporters of the bill said it would prevent projects from being held up by lawsuits, but opponents of the bill said it left too little time for groups to understand all the potential risks associated with the project.
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Missouri, said the bill “deals a long-overdue blow to the radical environmental agenda that strengthened the Clean Water Act.”
“The PERMIT Act cuts red tape,” Burlison said. “It ends bureaucratic overreach and restores the freedom to build an America that works for its people again.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, said the bill’s 60-day review period for fill and dredge permits would be “impossibly short” for the community to understand the project’s impacts or offer any “meaningful resistance” to it.
“This is a false solution that attacks basic protections for clean water and impedes access to our courts,” Jayapal said.
Tarah Heinzen, legal director at the environmental group Food & Water Watch, said the bill was an “outright attack” on one of the “most important fundamental environmental laws in the country.”
“The impact of this bill would be grim: a return to the bad old days of uncontrolled industrial pollution, river fires, contaminated drinking water, poisoned communities and disease,” Heinzen said in a statement.
Rep. Dave Taylor, R-Ohio, said the bill also includes amendments to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) that would provide “reasonable protection” to permit holders from “frivolous” lawsuits if they comply with the terms of their permits.
Scholten said the bill was “nothing more than a dirty water bill with a fancy name” and urged the body to “come back to the table” and reject the bill in its current form.
Amendments
Seven amendments were introduced and passed on the floor, including one introduced by U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, D-Fla., that he said would codify the dredge and fill permit programs administered by the states of Florida, Michigan and New Jersey and would “provide certainty” to other states lined up to do the same.
Scholten opposed this amendment along with other Republican-led amendments that would: speed up judicial review processes for discharge permits, change the definition of previously converted farmland, require the identification of federal lands suitable for aquifer recharge projects, and enhance the available supply of bank loans for wetland mitigation.
Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, proposed an amendment that passed on a voice vote that would establish a voluntary pilot program to support state-led projects to improve water quality in waterways contaminated with nitrogen and phosphorus.
Nunn said the amendment would lend a hand “water quality improvement projects progress smoothly” and without imposing “new obligations on the producer or private landowner.”
Nunn said the issue is especially essential for his home state of Iowa, where rivers regularly occur nitrogen concentration well above the sheltered drinking water limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Scholten said the amendment, which did not include funding for the pilot program, was “costly and unnecessary.” She was concerned that if there were no funds for the volunteer program, funds from other programs would be diverted.
Finally, Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., proposed an amendment that would have allowed the International Boundary and Water Commission to adopt funds for wastewater treatment and flood control work, which passed without Republican opposition.
This story was originally produced by Shipping from Iowa’s capitalwhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes the Ohio Capital Journal and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
