Washington, DC - Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI15), one of the architects of the 1972 Clean Water Act, had the following reaction today after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) issued new wetlands guidance under the Clean Water Act.

“The Administration’s guidance on Clean Water Act jurisdiction today reminds me a little of Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter’s definition of pornography in 1964 – ‘I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…’ With 59 % of all streams and rivers and their neighboring wetlands being intermittent or ephemeral, this guidance leaves protection for these waters murky and to be determined on a case by case basis. Suffice it to say, the guidance today proves once and for all that Congress should pass the Clean Water Restoration Act to clarify that it was intended that all waters of the United States be covered by the law.”

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