AGC Joins Waters Advocacy Coalition in Letter to The New York Times

AGC joined members of the Waters Advocacy Coalition (WAC) Wednesday in a letter to the editor of The New York Times in response to an article the newspaper published March 1. The article addressed concerns with water and wetland protection under the Clean Water Act following two Supreme Court decisions over the last decade.  The New York Times article reports that WAC, of which AGC is a founding member, has used scare tactics to block consideration of the Clean Water Restoration Act, which its proponents claim would restore federal jurisdiction over waters and wetlands they believe have been lost due to the Supreme Court's rulings.  WAC's letter to the editor responds to this mischaracterization by stating that WAC fully supports the Clean Water Act and its implementation to protect waters and wetlands, and that WAC's concerns with the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) are valid and based on the explicit language of the bill.  The bill would grant EPA and the Corps virtually unlimited regulatory control over all "intrastate waters" - essentially all wet areas within a state, including groundwater, ditches, pipes, streets, gutters and desert features. For more information, contact Karen Lapsevic at (202) 547-4733 or lapsevick@agc.org.