Norton Offers Clean Water Amendment to Protect D.C.’s & Nation’s Water Supply
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, offered a clean water amendment at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee markup of H.R. 5078, the so-called Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act of 2014. The bill, as currently written, would restrict the Obama administration from going forward with its proposed rule and finalizing its guidance or using them as the basis for any decision regarding the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. Norton's amendment clarified that restrictions in the bill do not apply to waters that are used as or affect public drinking water supplies. Unfortunately, the Norton amendment failed by voice vote.
"Why my Republican colleagues wish to deregulate public drinking water is beyond me," Norton said. "Agencies will be left with no guidance on how to ensure clean drinking for more than 100 million Americans. Even the water that Members of Congress drink here in the District would be affected by the bill because the Potomac River, the source of the District's drinking water, is fed by small waterways. This bill doesn't protect anything but the interests of polluters and the Members who support them."
It is estimated that 117 million Americans rely on public water supplies fed by these streams, estuaries and wetlands that would be deregulated as a result of the bill.
Norton offered a similar amendment in the 112th Congress when Republicans, again, tried to deregulate public drinking water.