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Water:
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Guidance Amendment

Our Position: support
Bill Number: H.AMDT.188 to HR2361
Sponsor: Bart Stupak (D-MI)
Legislative Session: 2005

In November 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a misguided policy to allow sewage treatment operators to dump barely treated sewage into lakes and rivers anytime it rains.

Representatives Stupak (D-MI), Shaw (R-FL), Pallone (D-NJ) and Miller (R-FL) offered an amendment to the appropriations bill and were building support for their amendment to prevent the EPA from finalizing the guidance. Faced with the prospect of losing a floor vote in the Republican-controlled House, EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Ben Grumbles issued a statement saying that the EPA had decided not to finalize the November 2003 proposal.

Status

The EPA’s attempt to ward off the vote on our amendment failed. Representative Stupak and the others decided to go forward with the amendment to send the EPA a strong signal that dumping barely treated sewage is a flawed policy.

The floor debate was brief. Representative John Duncan (R-TN), the leading defender of the EPA’s policy, repeated the sewage treatment operators’ litany of false claims: the Stupak amendment would cost $200 billion; it would overturn the rules that permit blending in exceptional circumstances, when there is no feasible alternative; and blending sewage is really a technique to protect public health.

But in the end, EPA’s defenders did not have the stomach for an on-the-record vote that would enable us to hold Members accountable. After the brief debate, the House leadership decided to accept the Stupak amendment, obviating a recorded vote. Instead, there was a pro forma voice vote. Forcing the Bush administration to withdraw its sewage dumping policy and winning a vote in the most anti-environmental House of Representatives in history is a tremendous victory for clean water!