NCLCV Joins Advocacy Groups in Opposition of HR 3898

The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a package of devastating assaults on clean water protections nationwide. This pro-polluter wish list is HR 3898, known as the PERMIT Act. The NC League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV) is joining citizen advocacy groups across the country in a strong letter of opposition to this package of environmental destruction.

“This bill includes nearly 20 different provisions that weaken pollution controls in the Clean Water Act, and it would jeopardize the waters that our families, communities, businesses, and wildlife depend on. Poll after poll demonstrate that people strongly support clean water policies, because people from the most rural communities to the most densely populated cities all rely on our bedrock clean water protections every day,” the letter reads. 

“The Clean Water Act has long served as a foundation for public health, community resilience, and economic vitality – from agriculture and industry to fishing, hunting, tourism, and outdoor recreation. Numerous provisions in H.R. 3898 would shield industrial dischargers who pollute or destroy our streams, lakes, wetlands, and other waters from responsibility and accountability, thereby forcing our communities to shoulder the financial and public health burden of increased pollution and flooding.”

PERMIT Act Provisions

The major components of HR 3898 include provisions that do the following:

• Allow industrial polluters to discharge “forever chemicals” into waters without informing pollution control officials;
• Undermine states’ and Tribes’ ability to prevent harm to their critical water bodies from projects such as oil and gas pipelines;
• Give blanket authority to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to exclude any kind of water body from Clean Water Act protection in the future;
• Restrict EPA’s authority to require usage of objectively affordable, effective treatment technology by industrial dischargers in certain situations, even if facilities are already regularly using the technology;
• Allow massive amounts of pesticides to be released into waterways without Clean Water Act-mandated controls designed to keep waterways safe for people and aquatic life;
• Fast-track activities that destroy vast amounts of wetlands and streams without ensuring these harms are avoided, minimized, and mitigated;
• Reject a federal court’s finding that Florida’s assumption of federal Clean Water Act permitting authority was insufficient to provide adequate safeguards, and require EPA to automatically approve any comparable (i.e. similarly insufficient) application for such authority in other states.
• Prevent the EPA from exercising its longstanding authority to prevent dumping projects that endanger entire watersheds, except in very narrow circumstances.

Act Now to Protect Our Clean Water

NCLCV is joining with advocates nationwide to fight for the protection of clean water, air, land, and our shared future. This environmental work is imperative to the health and safety of our communities. Show your support today.