Clean Water Act Quotes

[The impact on industries and farmers of dropping the word 'navigable' from the Clean Water Act] could be catastrophic.

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Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Environment and Energy TV.
348905/03/2010 | Full Details | Law(s): Clean Water Act

Laws dealing with complex and technical problems were passed with much emotionalism, little debate, and even less of a data base for support.

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Gary D. Knight, Associate Director for Environment, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Commerce Public Presentations

Because of our guilt—and because of the media’s espousement (sic) of the movement—laws were passed which asked industry and the American consumer for the impossible. The members [of Congress] admitted they did not know what could actually be done to clean up our environment, how long it would take or how much it would cost. But they went ahead anyway in the spirit of political expediency to ramrod through measures that would affect millions of people and billions of dollars…

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Gary D. Knight, Associate Director for Environment, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Commerce Public Presentations

Clean air, land and water are vital to all of us. But so are jobs, food, clothing and housing. We have to weigh the total impact on the environment along with the economic and social costs in order to clean up.

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Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Arch Booth, Chamber of Commerce Newsletter, May 1973.

Effluent taxes are a license to pollute. If the tax is low or moderate there is little incentive to provide treatment prior to discharge. If the tax is too high some firms, because of size, marginal nature or age, may be forced to close. This can, and does, happen under existing water quality programs. But such shutdowns are directly related to water quality. Shutdowns due to effluent taxes which ignore water quality and produce no tangible benefits are economically and socially unacceptable.

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Edwin A. Locke, Jr., President, American Paper Institute, Testimony, Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works.
06/09/1970 | Full Details | Law(s): Clean Water Act

To remove jurisdiction of thermal discharges to the higher Federal level offers no evident benefits in the public interest, and on the contrary our experience has shown that it will lead to decisionmaking[sic] on the basis of arbitrary formulas without giving proper weight to the local conditions that do affect public interest.

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William S. Lee, Vice President for Engineering, Duke Power Co., on Behalf of Edison Electric Institute, Testimony, Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works.
04/28/1970 | Full Details | Law(s): Clean Water Act

Proposed new subsection 10(k) in section 4 of the bill (page 43, line 8), would prohibit the Federal Government from entering into contracts with, or providing financial assistance to, any person whose facilities are not in compliance with water quality standards…..This provision, as written, seems unwieldy. It could not be faithfully carried out without generating a tremendous amount of unnecessary paperwork and inconvenience for all concerned—Federal and State agencies, as well as industry.

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Peter N. Gammelgard, Senior Vice President for Public and Environmental Affairs, American Petroleum Institute, Testimony, Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works.
348704/28/1970 | Full Details | Law(s): Clean Water Act

We feel that the new plant should have equipment installed to abate pollution that meets and exceeds the established standards. If I recognize what you are driving at, company XYZ could come out with a piece of equipment that could be extremely expensive that would eliminate all pollution whatsoever and if I were to agree with your question, that would mean that all of your industry would then have to buy that piece of equipment from company XYZ with the basis against all other companies that are producing pollution equipment. I don’t think that is the objective of free enterprise.

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Donald R. Talbot, The National Association of Manufacturers, Testimony, Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works
04/20/1970 | Full Details | Law(s): Clean Water Act

The general public wants both blue water in the streams and adequate employment for the community. The older plant may not be able to afford the investment in waste treatment facilities necessary to provide blue water; the only alternative may be to shut the operation down. But the employees of the plant and the community cannot afford to have the plant shut down. They cannot afford to lose the employment furnished by the operation.

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William R. Adams, President, St. Regis Paper Co., on Behalf of the Pulp, Paper & Paperboard Institute (U.S.A.), Inc.; Accompanied by George Boyd, Counsel, Pulp, Paper & Paperboard Institute; and Dr. Malcolm Taylor, Union Bag & Paper Corp., Testimony, Senate Special Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Committee on Public Works.
01/18/1965 | Full Details | Law(s): Clean Water Act