I 
108TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 962
To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify the jurisdiction 
of the United States over waters of the United States. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 27, 2003
Mr. OBERSTAR (for himself, Mr. DINGELL, Mr. DEFAZIO, Mr. LEACH, Mr. 
HOEFFEL, Mr. KUCINICH, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. BROWN of Ohio, Ms. BALD-
WIN, Ms. NORTON, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. BOEHLERT, Mr. 
BLUMENAUER, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. GEORGE MILLER of 
California, 
Mr. 
VISCLOSKY, 
Mr. 
INSLEE, 
Mr. 
NADLER, 
Mrs. 
NAPOLITANO, and Mrs. TAUSCHER) introduced the following bill; which 
was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
A BILL 
To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify 
the jurisdiction of the United States over waters of the 
United States.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Clean Water Authority 
Restoration Act of 2003’’. 
SEC. 2. PURPOSES. 
The purposes of this Act are as follows:
(1) To reaffirm the original intent of Congress 
in enacting the Federal Water Pollution Control Act 
Amendments of 1972 (86 Stat. 816) to restore and 
maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integ-
rity of the waters of the United States. 
(2) To clearly define the waters of the United 
States that are subject to the Federal Water Pollu-
tion Control Act. 
(3) To provide protection to the waters of the 
United States to the fullest extent of the legislative 
authority of Congress under the Constitution. 
SEC. 3. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Water is a unique and precious resource 
that is necessary to sustain human life and the life 
of animals and plants. 
(2) Water is used not only for human, animal, 
and plant consumption, but is also important for ag-
riculture, transportation, flood control, energy pro-
duction, recreation, fishing and shellfishing, and mu-
nicipal and commercial uses. 
(3) In enacting amendments to the Federal 
Water Pollution Control Act in 1972 and through 
subsequent amendment, including the Clean Water 
Act of 1977 (91 Stat. 1566) and the Water Quality
Act of 1987 (101 Stat. 7), Congress established the 
national objective of restoring and maintaining the 
chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the wa-
ters of the United States and recognized that achiev-
ing this objective requires uniform, minimum na-
tional water quality and aquatic ecosystem protec-
tion standards to restore and maintain the natural 
structures and functions of the aquatic ecosystems 
of the United States. 
(4) 
Water 
is 
transported 
through 
inter-
connected hydrologic cycles, and the pollution, im-
pairment, or destruction of any part of an aquatic 
system may affect the chemical, physical, and bio-
logical integrity of other parts of the aquatic system. 
(5) Protection of intrastate waters, along with 
other waters of the United States, is necessary to re-
store and maintain the chemical, physical, and bio-
logical integrity of all waters in the United States. 
(6) The regulation of discharges of pollutants 
into interstate and intrastate waters is an integral 
part of the comprehensive clean water regulatory 
program of the United States. 
(7) Small and periodically-flowing streams com-
prise the majority of all stream channels in the 
United States and serve critical biological and
hydrological functions that affect entire watersheds, 
including reducing the introduction of pollutants to 
large streams and rivers, and especially affecting the 
life cycles of aquatic organisms and the flow of high-
er order streams during floods. 
(8) The pollution or other degradation of wa-
ters of the United States, individually and in the ag-
gregate, has a substantial relation to and effect on 
interstate commerce. 
(9) Protection of the waters of the United 
States, including intrastate waters, is necessary to 
prevent significant harm to interstate commerce and 
sustain a robust system of interstate commerce in 
the future. 
(10) Waters, including wetlands, provide protec-
tion from flooding, and draining or filling wetlands 
and channelizing or filling streams, including intra-
state wetlands and streams, can cause or exacerbate 
flooding, placing a significant burden on interstate 
commerce.
(11) Millions of people in the United States de-
pend on wetlands and other waters of the United 
States to filter water and recharge surface and sub-
surface drinking water supplies, protect human 
health, and create economic opportunity.
(12) Millions of people in the United States 
enjoy recreational activities that depend on intra-
state waters, such as waterfowl hunting, bird watch-
ing, fishing, and photography and other graphic 
arts, and those activities and associated travel gen-
erate billions of dollars of income each year for the 
travel, tourism, recreation, and sporting sectors of 
the economy of the United States. 
(13) Activities that result in the discharge of 
pollutants into waters of the United States are com-
mercial or economic in nature. 
(14) States have the responsibility and right to 
prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution of waters, 
and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act re-
spects the rights and responsibilities of States by 
preserving for States the ability to manage permit-
ting, grant, and research programs to prevent, re-
duce, and eliminate pollution, and to establish stand-
ards and programs more protective of a State’s wa-
ters than is provided under Federal standards and 
programs. 
(15) Protecting the quality of and regulating 
activities affecting the waters of the United States 
is a necessary and proper means of implementing 
treaties to which the United States is a party, in-
cluding treaties protecting species of fish, birds, and 
wildlife. 
(16) Protecting the quality of and regulating 
activities affecting the waters of the United States 
is a necessary and proper means of protecting Fed-
eral land, including hundreds of millions of acres of 
parkland, refuge land, and other land under Federal 
ownership and the wide array of waters encompassed 
by that land. 
(17) Protecting the quality of and regulating 
activities affecting the waters of the United States 
is necessary to protect Federal land and waters from 
discharges of pollutants and other forms of degrada-
tion. 
SEC. 4. DEFINITION OF WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control 
Act (33 U.S.C. 1362) is amended—
(1) by striking paragraph (7); 
(2) by redesignating paragraphs (8) through 
(23) as paragraphs (7) through (22), respectively; 
and 
(3) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(23) WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES.—The 
term ‘waters of the United States’ means all waters 
subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial
seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and 
their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (in-
cluding intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, 
wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, 
playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of 
the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, 
or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the 
legislative power of Congress under the Constitu-
tion.’’. 
SEC. 5. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS. 
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 
1251 et seq.) is amended—
(1) by striking ‘‘navigable waters of the United 
States’’ each place it appears and inserting ‘‘waters 
of the United States’’; 
(2) in section 304(l)(1) by striking ‘‘NAVIGABLE 
WATERS’’ in the heading and inserting ‘‘WATERS OF 
THE UNITED STATES’’; and 
(3) by striking ‘‘navigable waters’’ each place it 
appears and inserting ‘‘waters of the United 
States’’.
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