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Subcommittee chairman urges review of Clean Water Act to speed infrastructure projects
Summary
The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment opened a hearing by urging a review of the Clean Water Act to better balance water quality protections with timely delivery of infrastructure projects, and said the panel will hear from witnesses about possible changes.
The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment (name not provided in the transcript) opened the hearing by saying the Clean Water Act has improved the nation’s waters but has sometimes been used to delay infrastructure work.
“For 50 years, the Clean Water Act has functioned to improve the quality of rivers, lakes, and streams throughout the country, including in my home state of Georgia,” the chairman said in a prepared opening statement. He noted the law’s 1972 origins and the federal-state partnership it established.
The chairman framed the hearing as an effort to balance environmental protections and project delivery, saying, “to let America build, the Clean Water Act needs to work.” He argued industries and local governments need a permitting process that is “easy to understand, easy to follow, and easy to implement,” and criticized what he characterized as excessive litigation and regulation that can slow projects.
The statement listed groups the chairman said rely on a predictable permitting system: states, manufacturers, energy producers, cities, farmers, builders, homeowners and utilities. He also said the subcommittee would hear from witnesses about returning the statute “to its goal of protecting our water bodies and allowing important projects to get done.”
The hearing chair referenced the Trump administration’s priorities—“unleashing our nation's natural resources, ramping up energy production, and maintaining our physical infrastructure”—as background for the panel’s review. The chairman said he is looking forward to working with colleagues “to ensure excellence in transportation and infrastructure space and furthering the president's goals.”
The hearing continued with witness testimony and questioning (not recorded in this transcript excerpt).
