By Mary Kerr (202) 225-6260
On the eve of the 36th anniversary of the enactment of the Clean Water Act (October 18), Rep. James L. Oberstar, Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, released the attached report on the status of the nation’s waters under the Bush Administration.
This landmark environmental statute, which established a national commitment to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters, has been undermined and weakened by the Bush administration, and many Federal clean water protections have been eliminated in the past eight years.
Among the findings of the report:
• the Bush administration has walked away from the Federal commitment towards improving, repairing, and replacing the nation’s crumbling wastewater infrastructure;
• the Bush administration has ignored the growing scientific consensus on global warming, leaving Americans more vulnerable to droughts, coastal and river flooding, and other climate-related impacts;
• the Bush administration has embraced the misguided opinions of conservative Supreme Court justices on the protections of the Clean Water Act, and turned the nation's "no net loss" policy into a "pro net loss" policy;
• the Bush administration has embraced the wishes of special-interest polluters, such as the oil and gas industry, chemical manufacturers, and large-scale factory farmers, in weakening Clean Water Act protections over the nation’s waters; and
• the Bush administration has proposed to relax decades-old Clean Water Act standards to prevent the discharge of raw or partially-treated sewage into the nation’s rivers and streams.
Click here to view a copy of the report.
###
