I
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 5194
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
JULY 24, 2002
Mr. OBERSTAR (for himself, Mr. DINGELL, Mr. DEFAZIO, and Mr. BORSKI)
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 2002’’.
SEC. 2. 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) Water has significant historic and cultural
value in our society.
(4) In enacting the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) 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 estab-
lished the national objective of restoring and main-
taining the chemical, physical, and biological integ-
rity of the waters of the United States and recog-
nized that achieving this objective requires restora-
tion and maintenance of the natural structures and
functions of the aquatic ecosystems of the United
States.
(5) 
Water 
is 
transported 
through 
inter-
connected hydrologic cycles, and the pollution, im-
pairment, or destruction of part of an aquatic sys-
tem may affect the chemical, physical, and biological
integrity of other interconnected parts of the aquatic
system.
(6) Protection of intrastate waters, including
waters that appear to be isolated, along with other
waters of the United States, is necessary to restore
and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological
integrity of all waters in the United States.
(7) The regulation of discharges of pollutants
into isolated and intrastate waters is an integral
part of the comprehensive clean water regulatory
program of the United States.
(8) The term ‘‘waters of the United States’’
means all waters of the United States subject to the
powers of the Federal Government under the Con-
stitution, including wetlands adjacent to bodies of
water and other wetlands and waters often referred
to as isolated.
(9) Regardless of whether a wetland or other
water is referred to as isolated, wetlands, lakes,
ponds, and other types of water in the United States
are an integral part of the aquatic environment that
contribute to the chemical, physical, and biological
integrity of the aquatic system.
(10) The waters of the United States, including
intrastate and isolated waters, filter pollutants from
surface run-off and remove pollutants before the
water is released to groundwater or surface water or
taken up by plants and animals and widely dispersed
throughout the food chain.
(11) The waters of the United States, including
intrastate and isolated waters, also provide crucial
habitat for flora and fauna that contribute to the bi-
ological integrity of the aquatic environment, includ-
ing unique aquatic vegetation, amphibians, reptiles,
fish, shorebirds, raptors, waterfowl, and other migra-
tory birds.
(12) More than one-half of the duck population
of the United States breeds in intrastate and iso-
lated waters, as do approximately one-half of all am-
phibian species in the United States.
(13) Small and periodically-flowing streams
comprise the majority of all stream channels in the
United States and serve critical biological and
hydrological functions that affect entire watersheds,
especially the life cycles of aquatic organisms and
the movement of higher order streams during floods.
(14) Destroying, polluting, or altering small
stream channels often results in an accumulation of
negative effects throughout a watershed, including
the introduction of pollutants to larger-order
streams and rivers.
(15) The pollution or other degradation of wa-
ters of the United States, including isolated and
intrastate waters, individually and in the aggregate,
has a substantial relation to and affect on interstate
commerce.
(16) Protection of the waters of the United
States, including intrastate and isolated waters, is
necessary to prevent significant harm to interstate
commerce and sustain a robust system of interstate
commerce in the future.
(17) The navigation system of the United
States directly benefits from maintaining the variety
of water types that collect, store, and filter run-off
because that collection, storage, and filtration great-
ly reduces the quantity of sediment deposits and
navigation disruption in the waters of the United
States, and without the direct benefits of isolated
and intrastate waters, the United States would
spend millions of additional dollars on navigational
dredging projects.
(18) Thousands of businesses and communities
depend on wetlands and intrastate and isolated wa-
ters for protection from flooding.
(19) Draining or filling isolated wetlands and
channelizing or filling streams, including intrastate
streams, causes or exacerbates flooding.
(20) Floods and the risk of floods are a signifi-
cant burden on interstate commerce because floods
damage and destroy public infrastructure, private
homes, and businesses.
(21) Millions of people in the United States de-
pend on intrastate and isolated wetlands to filter
water and recharge surface and subsurface drinking
water supplies.
(22) Polluted drinking water and depleted
drinking water supplies are significant burdens on
interstate commerce because the lack of a safe and
ample water supply significantly limits economic
growth and adversely affects human health.
(23) Agriculture depends on intrastate and iso-
lated waters for irrigation, watering stock, and
maintenance of water supply to wells.
(24) Millions of people in the United States
enjoy recreational activities that depend on intra-
state and isolated waters, such as waterfowl hunting,
bird watching, fishing, and photography and other
graphic arts, and those activities and associated
travel generate billions of dollars of income each
year for the travel, tourism, recreation, and sporting
sectors of the economy of the United States.
(25) Discharges of dredged and fill material
and other pollutants into waters of the United
States, including intrastate and isolated waters, are
almost always associated with activities that are
commercial or economic in nature.
(26) Wetlands, including intrastate and isolated
wetlands, are routinely filled to construct roads,
parking lots, residential subdivisions, commercial
buildings, solid waste landfills, and recreational and
institutional facilities, all of which have a substantial
relation to and effect on interstate commerce.
(27) Activities that result in the discharge of
pollutants into waters of the United States are com-
mercial or economic in nature, including industrial
production, transportation and infrastructure devel-
opment, residential and commercial construction and
site 
development, 
navigation, 
agriculture 
and
silviculture, and resource extraction.
(28) In enacting the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act and its amendments, Congress recog-
nized that—
(A) inconsistent State water pollution con-
trol laws are insufficient to protect the aquatic
ecosystems of the United States; and
(B) uniform, minimum national water
quality and aquatic ecosystem protection stand-
ards are essential to prevent incentives to lower
environmental standards and allow businesses
in States with less protective environmental
standards to achieve greater profits, not only at
the expense of the downstream public but also
at the expense of businesses in States that im-
pose more protective environmental standards.
(29) 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.
(30) 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, such as—
(A) the Convention for the Protection of
Migratory Birds in the United States and Can-
ada, signed at Washington on August 16, 1916
(39 Stat. 1702);
(B) the Convention for the Protection of
Migratory Birds and Game Mammals, signed at
Mexico City on February 7, 1936 (50 Stat.
1311); and
(C) the Convention on Nature Protection
and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemi-
sphere, with an annex, opened for signature at
the Pan American Union at Washington on Oc-
tober 12, 1940 (56 Stat. 1354).
(31) 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
(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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