Federal Water Quality Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I join many of my colleagues in opposing S. 1140 and S.J. Res. 22.

These measures would block or nullify the clean water rule, which seeks to safeguard our water and restore protections to drinking water sources for one in three Americans, according to the EPA, under the authority of the Clean Water Act.

The clean water rule helps to clarify ambiguities stemming from the 2001 and 2006 Supreme Court decisions that made the scope of the Clean Water Act uncertain.

This lack of protection has taken its toll, especially for wetlands and intermittent and headwater streams, slowing permitting decisions for responsible development, and reducing protections for drinking water supplies and critical habitat.

According to the National Parks Conservation Association, over 117 million Americans, including many visitors to national parks, get their drinking water from surface waters.

This includes many Rhode Islanders who get their drinking water from sources that rely on small streams that are protected by the clean water rule.

If Congress blocks the clean water rule, Rhode Island's streams and millions of acres of wetlands nationwide will again be at risk from pollution and degradation or destruction from development, oil and gas production, and other industrial activities.

Blocking this rule would potentially imperil drinking water sources, as well as the small businesses and communities that rely on clean water.

Thousands of acres of wetlands that provide flood protection, recharge groundwater supplies, filter pollution, and provide essential wildlife habitat are safeguarded under the clean water rule, including many of Rhode Island's streams, wetlands, waterways, and the bay.

Additionally, the clean water rule seeks to protect small streams and wetlands that support fish, wildlife, and recreational areas.

We depend on clean water to drink, and our economy depends on clean water from manufacturing to farming to tourism to recreation to energy production and more to function and flourish.

We must make clean water a priority throughout the nation.

I urge my colleagues to support the clean water rule and vote ``no'' on both S. 1140 and S.J. Res. 22.

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