Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 7023 - Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

(House Rules)
(Rep. Rouzer, R-NC)

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 7023, which would weaken the Clean Water Act, remove protections for waterways that are vital to the well-being of American families, and undermine ongoing, bipartisan efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of infrastructure permitting processes. The Administration is making historic investments and taking unprecedented action to modernize and accelerate permitting to ensure that infrastructure projects get designed and built swiftly and in a way that reflects community input and protects clean air, clean water, and public health. H.R. 7023 would create uncertainty, confusion, and conflict in permitting processes by: restricting community input and environmental analysis and information that is needed to inform Federal decisions to protect the public; curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to keep pollutants out of water supplies upon which communities rely; and, weakening bedrock environmental protections. H.R. 7023 is out of step with the type of bipartisan permitting reforms that the Administration supports and that Congress should pass.