(B) On February 12, 2003, the Environ-
mental Protection Agency published the rule 
‘‘National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Sys-
tem Permit Regulation and Effluent Limitation 
Guidelines and Standards for Concentrated 
Animal Feeding Operations’’—new livestock 
waste regulations that aimed to control factory 
farm pollution but which would severely under-
mine existing Clean Water Act protections. This 
regulation allows large-scale animal factories to 
foul the Nation’s waters with animal waste, al-
lows livestock owners to draft their own pollu-
tion-management plans and avoid groundwater 
monitoring, legalizes the discharge of contami-
nated runoff water rich in nitrogen, phos-
phorus, bacteria, and metals, and ensures that 
large factory farms are not held liable for the 
environmental damage they cause. 
(C) On March 19, 2003, the Environ-
mental Protection Agency published a new rule 
regarding the Total Maximum Daily Load pro-
gram of the Clean Water Act, which regulates 
the maximum amount of a particular pollutant 
that can be present in a body of water and still 
meet water quality standards. The new rule 
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withdrew the existing regulation put forth on 
July 13, 2000, and halted momentum in clean-
ing up polluted waterways throughout the coun-
try. By abandoning the existing rule, the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency is undermining 
the effectiveness of clean-up plans and is allow-
ing States to avoid cleaning polluted waters en-
tirely by dropping them from their clean-up 
lists. Waterways play a crucial role in the lives 
of Americans and are critical to the livelihood 
of fish and wildlife. By dropping the July 2000 
rule, cleanup of existing polluted rivers, shore-
lines, and lakes will be delayed, harming more 
fish and wildlife and worsening the quality of 
drinking water. 
(2) FORESTS AND LAND MANAGEMENT.— 
(A) On December 3, 2003, the President 
signed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 
2003 (Public law 108–148). Although the law 
attempts to reduce the risk of catastrophic for-
est fires, it provides a boon to timber companies 
by accelerating the aggressive thinning of 
backcountry forests that are far from at-risk 
communities. The law allows for increased log-
ging of large, fire-resistant trees that are not in 
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close proximity of homes and communities; it 
undermines critical protections for endangered 
species by exempting Federal land management 
agencies from consulting with the United States 
Fish and Wildlife Service before approving any 
action that could harm endangered plants or 
wildlife; and it limits public participation by re-
ducing the number of environmental project re-
views and exempting projects designed to re-
duce hazardous fuels from analysis. 
(B) On January 5, 2005, the Department 
of Agriculture published a new national forest 
system land and resource management planning 
rule in the Federal Register that replaced the 
existing rule published on November 9, 2000. 
The revised rule opens 155 national forests and 
20 grasslands (over 192 million acres of public 
lands) to logging, grazing, drilling, and other 
commercial activities. The new rule reverses 
more than 20 years of protection for wildlife 
and national forests by removing the overall 
goal of ensuring ecological sustainability in 
managing the national forest system, weakening 
the National Forest Management Act of 1976, 
and effectively ending the review of forest man-
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