Reply #3: Bush Administration Directs Agencies to Ignore Clean Water Act

[WhiteTara]

they haven't changed it yet, this is just the cheap way of not handling any problems.
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000182.php
September 14, 2004
Bush Administration Directs Agencies to Ignore Clean Water Act

Using a back-door route to deregulation, the Bush administration has removed clean water protections for 20 million acres of American wetlands and tens of thousands of miles of streams, lakes and ponds, according to documents obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act. <1>

The documents, used to produce the report "Reckless Abandon: How the Bush Administration is Exposing America's Waters to Harm," outline the consequences of a 2003 federal policy directive that encourages regulators to routinely avoid enforcing Clean Water Act protections for American rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands unless otherwise directed.

The report was produced by nonprofit environmental groups Earthjustice, the National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Sierra Club. It can be found online at www.cwn.org.

"For the first time in over 30 years of cleaning up our waters, we're going backwards," said Paul Schwartz, national policy coordinator for Clean Water Action. Schwartz noted that after the Clean Water Act took effect in 1972, the percentage of the nation's waters deemed clean enough for fishing and swimming nearly doubled. But recent state reports now show those numbers declining, he said.

"The water is getting dirtier, and the Bush administration is leading one of the most fundamental attacks on a law that has arguably done more to protect the environment and public health than any other environmental law," Schwartz told BushGreenwatch.