“A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to provide exclusions from the term "navigable waters", and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section revises the definition of "navigable waters" under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to exclude four categories of waters or features. (As background, "navigable waters" determines the geographic scope of CWA regulatory programs, including requirements for permits to discharge pollutants.) The exclusions are (1) any component of a waste treatment system, including lagoons or treatment ponds (such as settling or cooling ponds), designed to convey or retain wastewater or to concentrate, settle, reduce, or remove pollutants from wastewater; (2) ephemeral features that flow only in direct response to precipitation (i.e., short-lived drainages without a continuous bed, bank, or ordinary high water mark); (3) groundwater; and (4) any other features determined to be excluded by the EPA Administrator and the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Chief of Engineers. (Thus, these features are exempt from CWA permitting and other regulatory requirements previously applicable to waters of the United States.)