“A bill to ensure that certain permit approvals by the Environmental Protection Agency have the force and effect of law, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section ratifies the Clean Water Act section 404 (33 U.S.C. 1344) dredged or fill material permit programs assumed by Michigan (approved 1984), New Jersey (approved 1994), and Florida (approved 2020) and prohibits the EPA Administrator from withdrawing approval of those programs—including via the section 404(i) process—unless expressly authorized by Congress. It further (1) authorizes both the Army Corps of Engineers and Florida to issue such permits during a 90-day transition period beginning on the date of enactment; (2) requires the Administrator, upon determining that a new state program is comparable to one of these programs, to approve it under section 404(h)(2)(A), notify the Corps and state, and direct the Corps to suspend its own permitting for covered activities; and (3) amends section 404(h) to specify that approval of a state program is not a rule or regulation. (As background, section 404 permits discharges of dredged or fill material into navigable waters, typically issued by the Corps unless a state assumes program administration following EPA approval; thus, this provision entrenches state primacy in these three states and streamlines assumption by others.)