National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (Npdes)

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, today I reintroduce an amendment to the Clean Water Act extending permit terms for publicly owned water infrastructure projects under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). I thank my colleague Congressman Ken Calvert (R-CA) for his support as the original cosponsor again this Congress.

This bipartisan bill would simply extend the NPDES permit term for projects owned and operated by local public agencies like water districts from the current 5 years up to 10 years. NPDES permit terms for private projects or industrial discharges would remain at the current 5-year term.

The United States has fallen behind many other developed nations in wastewater infrastructure, receiving a D-plus grade in the American Society of Civil Engineers' most recent report card. One reason for this lapse in infrastructure modernization is arbitrary permitting timetables imposed by federal law. Permit terms should match the construction timelines and on-the-ground reality for the projects to which those permits apply. This is currently not the case. With over 95 percent of wastewater infrastructure spending at the local level, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, lengthening permit terms for local governments would be one of the most expeditious ways to encouraging further investment in 21st-century wastewater treatment and water recycling facilities.

Current NPDES permitting under the Clean Water Act has a maximum term of 5 years, an arbitrary timeline that is impracticable given prolonged construction schedules for local public agencies. As a result, California's State Water Resources Control Board and Clean Water Act regulators in other states are overwhelmed with a backlog of NPDES permitting requests for existing projects. New public projects are significantly delayed by this unnecessary bureaucracy, which also prevents regulators like California's State Water Resources Control Board from focusing on watershed-scale planning and water quality standards.

My bill would alleviate this burden by extending the maximum permit to 10 years, helping local water agencies nationwide better implement the Clean Water Act and cutting the current permitting backlog in half. Extending NPDES permit terms is a practical solution that allows local agencies to meet regulatory standards while building public water projects that measurably improve water quality, which after all is the purpose of the Clean Water Act.

In October 2019, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure passed my bill to allow States to issue NPDES permits with terms up to 10 years as part of then-Chairman DeFazio's bipartisan ``Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2019'' (H.R. 1497). Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to cosponsor this bipartisan bill.

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