Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee should Protect Clean Water

Environment America

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up its spending bill. Last week, the House of Representatives Energy and Water Appropriations Committee rubberstamped a spending bill that threatens America’s waterways by blocking Clean Water Act protections. Today, the Senate subcommittee may consider adopting similar language.

Ally Fields, Environment America’s Clean Water Advocate, issued the following statement:

“The House Energy and Water Subcommittee spending bill threatens the drinking water for 117 million Americans. Because it blocks the EPA’s clean water rule, Chairman Simpson’s Energy and Water Appropriations bill should be called the ‘dirty water bill.’ We urge the Senate Energy and Water Subcommittee to keep their bill free of riders that would compromise our environment and our health.

“From the Potomac River to the San Francisco Bay, Americans deserve clean water to drink, swim in, and fish from, but the House Appropriations Committee ‘dirty water bill’ would let big agribusiness, developers, miners, and other despoilers continue polluting our waterways. In March, the EPA proposed a rule to restore protections to waterways at risk of pollution due to polluter-driven loopholes – already hundreds of thousands have weighed in to support protecting America’s rivers, lakes and streams, including more than 300 small business owners. If we want to protect the rivers, lakes and streams that we love and depend on, the Senate can’t let its spending plan become another ‘dirty water bill.’ We need Subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to stand up for our waterways and our health by keeping this bill free of anti-environmental riders.”