Washington DC -- The Clean Water Act turned 48 on Sunday, October 19. Under this landmark law the United States has made steady progress to protect water throughout the nation. But one of the central goals of the Act -- to stop discharge of pollution into all of the nation’s water bodies -- has yet to be achieved. And attacks and rollbacks from the Trump administration has put that goal further out of reach.
Clean Water Action President and CEO, Bob Wendelgass, released the following statement:
“Instead of celebrating another year of progress toward the goal of ending pollution into the nation’s waters and making all of our waters safe for swimming and fishing, we’re fighting to save the Clean Water Act itself. Protections for our water have never been more at risk than under the Trump administration. In the past year Trump’s EPA has gutted protections for small streams and put nearly half of the nation’s remaining wetlands at risk, given coal-fired power plants a free pass to dump more toxic waste into our waters, and even allowed polluters to ignore safeguards during the pandemic.
If we truly want to celebrate the Clean Water Act, we must protect and strengthen it. To do that we need elected officials who will put people first and will work to ensure clean water for all by supporting common sense legislation like the Clean Water for All Act. That means voters who care about clean water and our communities must vote.
The only way we start to undo the damage of the past four years is to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and ensure that Mitch McConnell loses his majority in the Senate. We're doing everything we can to make that happen.
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Since our founding during the campaign to pass the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972, Clean Water Action has worked to win strong health and environmental protections by bringing issue expertise, solution-oriented thinking and people power to the table. We will protect clean water in the face of attacks from a polluter friendly Administration. www.cleanwateraction.org