“I commend the leadership of Representatives Oberstar, Ehlers and Dingell as they reaffirm the protections put in place thirty five years ago by the Clean Water Act. I will soon be reintroducing legislation in the Senate to do the same. We need to end the legal wrangling about what Congress meant when it passed the landmark law protecting our nation’s waters in 1972. The original Clean Water Act was clear: We must protect all waters from pollution, not just sustain the navigability of some waterways. Our legislation will help preserve all of our waters for drinking, recreation, and a host of other economically vital uses.”

Feingold has led the fight in the U.S. Senate to reaffirm the protections provided over thirty years ago in the Clean Water Act for our nation’s rivers, streams, and wetlands. The Clean Water Act was passed by Congress in 1972 and the U.S. Senate reconfirmed the broad scope of the law again in 1977 when it rejected—by a strong, bipartisan vote - a proposal to remove federal protections from a smaller category of wetlands and other waters.