The truth about the Clean Water Restoration Act Some claims are so outrageous that they must be answered. Like the claim that the misnamed "Clean Water Restoration Act" (HR2421/S1870) simply restores the "original intent" of Congress to regulate all waters in the United States. This claim is belied by the actual text of the Clean Water Act--the best and only indication of congressional intent--that says Congress intends to protect the nation's waters by eliminating the discharge of pollutants into the "navigable waters" while protecting "the primary responsibilities and rights of the states" to eliminate pollution and determine the "development and use ... of land and water resources" locally. Nowhere does the Clean Water Act state that Congress intends to regulate (i.e., federalize) all waters in the U.S. Instead, the act states just the opposite. Another outrageous claim that must be answered is the patently dishonest argument that the implementing agencies have had a consistent interpretation of the Clean Water Act for more than 30 years recognizing congressional intent to regulate all waters in the U.S. In truth, when the act was passed in 1972 (as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act), the Army Corps of Engineers asserted it could only regulate traditional navigable waters and not much else. The corps did not change its tune until 1975-76 when it adopted more expansive regulations. But even these regulations did not purport to cover all waters. They expressly excluded some wetlands and other waters, and still do. By 1986, the corps was only regulating wetlands adjacent to "navigable waters" and specifically excluded man-made drainage ditches. Still later, the corps adopted the infamous "Migratory Bird Rule" which authorized for the first time federal control over any water body that could be used by migrating waterfowl--a rule that would not have been necessary if the corps had already claimed for federal control all waters in the U.S. A 2004 GAO (General Accounting Office) audit revealed the corps did not have a consistent jurisdictional standard and that government officials from the same office could not agree on the reach of the act. And twice the U.S. Supreme Court has chastised the corps for its ever-changing regulatory interpretations. The fact is the agencies have never had a consistent view of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act nor have they ever claimed in a formal rule that the act reaches to all intra- and interstate waters in the nation, as does the proposed "Clean Water Restoration Act."....