The Clean Water Act

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem
Restoration Act of 2009 (H.R. 3852/S. 1816)

On October 20th, Senator Ben Cardin, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Water and Wildlife Subcommittee, and three other senators introduced the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009. On the same day, Congressman Elijah Cummings, a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee, together with ten other House members—including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, T&I Committee chair Jim Oberstar, and Water Resources Subcommittee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson—introduced a nearly identical bill.

These two bills seek to amend the federal Clean Water Act to ensure that the six states of the Bay watershed and the District of Columbia develop and implement detailed plans to reduce pollution sufficiently to achieve the Bay-wide pollution reduction targets for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment by 2025.

This is the strongest legislation to protect a single body of water in the history of our country and gets us back on track to cleaning up the Bay by:

• Developing a comprehensive approach to reduce stormwater pollution:
  Requires EPA to set strict, protective, science based stormwater standards so there is consistency in all watershed states. This will provide certainty for the business community and achieve real progress in addressing stormwater, the only source of pollution still growing.
  
• Helping state and local governments by approximately tripling EPA clean water funding going to the Bay watershed states over the next six years and tying a portion of that funding to performance:
  Gives incentives for progress through increased federal funding. New funds, along with the credit trading provisions of the legislation, will reduce pollution, create jobs, and boost local economies.
  
• Holding government accountable:
  Penalizes those states that fail to develop and implement pollution-reduction plans sufficient to protect water quality by withholding funding.
  
• Reducing pollution loads from federal facilities:
  Ensures the federal government’s actions match their words by requiring all federal facilities and buildings to reduce their pollution load sufficient to help protect the Bay.
  
• Banning phosphorus in detergents and other cleaners:
  Prohibits the use of phosphorus in household and industrial detergents and cleaning agents, which are significant sources of phosphorus pollution.
  

The Bay and the rivers and streams that feed it can’t take additional delay, which is why the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is working tirelessly to strengthen and pass this legislation before the end of this Congress. With your help, we will fend off special-interest attempts to weaken or kill the bill, tell Congress that their constituents demand clean water, and advocate for successful passage of the Chesapeake Clean Water Act.