FEATURE ARTICLE

February 2008

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Adrift in the Water: Key Provisions of the Water Quality Program Remain Untethered

Anyone paying attention over the last several years has been accosted by a series of developments that call into question whether we still have a common understanding of the purposes and mechanisms of water quality management in this country. Courts and EPA seem to be locked into a series of battles (with EPA losing each major engagement). At the same time, the Supreme Court left to its own devices produced such a conflicted explanation of where the Clean Water Act applies that even two conflicting interpretations were too few for the Justices to share. The political branches have done no better, having recently moved forward to fund critical water projects only by means of a veto override while remaining stubbornly incapable of mustering the will to update the Clean Water Act to guide its implementation in the coming decades.