Clean Water at Risk A 30th Anniversary Assessment of the Bush
Administration's Rollback of Clean Water Protections Thirty
years ago, the United States Congress confronted stark choices
about the future of America's waterways and drinking water.
Faced with President Richard Nixon's veto of the long-debated
Clean Water Act of 1972, Congress mustered overwhelming
majorities in both houses for a dramatic override. The result
was a sharp departure in clean water policy, a turning point in
the environmental movement, and, as the law began to do its
work, a quantum improvement in the safety and environmental
health of the nation's waterways. In the years since, the Clean
Water Act has come to be a model for every subsequent
environmental law. Ironically, on this 30th anniversary of the
October 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act, the Bush
administration is working to hobble the law. It is planning or
has already taken a variety of steps to delay or derail the
cleanup of impaired waters, to allow the dumping of solid