“To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act with respect to the scope of permits, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section revises National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit compliance provisions under section 402 of the Clean Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1342) as follows: (1) in subsection (k), specifies that compliance with a permit constitutes compliance with Clean Water Act effluent limitations for any pollutant with a permit effluent limitation and for any pollutant without such a limitation if it is specifically identified as controlled or monitored through indicator parameters in the permit, fact sheet, or administrative record; identified during the permit application as present in applicable discharges; present in identified waste streams or processes of the point source; or otherwise within the scope of identified point source operations (thus, expanding the permit compliance shield to certain unpermitted pollutants); (2) makes technical corrections to subsection (l)(3) for consistency in terminology and references; and (3) adds subsection (t) requiring that any water quality-based effluent limitations in a permit—beyond technology-based limitations—specify the pollutant and clearly describe compliance methods, including either a numerical limit or a narrative description of required actions.