Federal Clean Water Act Update

For over 25 years, the U.S. EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have provided a regulatory framework for what constitutes the definition of “waters of the United States”. Water bodies meeting this definition are highly regulated creating legal and regulatory implications. On March 25, 2014, EPA and the Corps proposed a joint rule redefining what consitutes “waters of the United States” in light of Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006. The 2014 proposed rule replaces guidance from 2003 and 2008, and attempts to clarify the regulatory status of isolated places in a landscape; it does not modify other categories of waters htt currently are jurisdictional by rule (e.g. navigable waters, wetlands, impoundments, etc.). Download pdf link to the Congressional Research Service recently published paper entitled, Federal Clean Water Act (CWA)