Bill Text: TX SCR32 | 2011-2012 | 82nd Legislature | Engrossed
Bill Title: Expressing opposition to federal regulation of intrastate water resources.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Republican 1)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2011-05-11 - Referred to State Sovereignty, Select [SCR32 Detail]
Download: Texas-2011-SCR32-Engrossed.html
| By: Seliger | S.C.R. No. 32 | |
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| WHEREAS, Individual state governments have traditionally | ||
| held jurisdiction over intrastate water resources, but S. 787, | ||
| 111th Cong. (2009), and H.R. 5088, 111th Cong. (2010), would expand | ||
| the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, widely known as the Clean | ||
| Water Act, to extend federal jurisdiction from "navigable waters of | ||
| the United States" to "waters of the United States," defined to | ||
| include "all other waters, such as intrastate lakes, rivers, | ||
| streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, | ||
| wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, or | ||
| natural ponds"; and | ||
| WHEREAS, Not only would such changes involve the federal | ||
| government in inefficient and cumbersome efforts to regulate highly | ||
| localized water resources, such as abandoned pits and ponds, but | ||
| this definition also grants the United States Environmental | ||
| Protection Agency broad and vague flexibility to interpret federal | ||
| jurisdiction expansively, which the agency has attempted to do | ||
| under the current law and with which the United States Supreme Court | ||
| has disagreed; in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. | ||
| United States Army Corps of Engineers (2001) and Rapanos v. United | ||
| States (2006), the supreme court held that the Clean Water Act was | ||
| not intended to grant federal authority over intrastate waters and | ||
| that these waters were not subject to regulation under the | ||
| Interstate Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution; and | ||
| WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment of the United States | ||
| Constitution preserves powers not delegated to the federal | ||
| government for the states, establishing federalism and state | ||
| sovereignty as integral founding principles of American | ||
| government; recent proposals by Congress to amend the Clean Water | ||
| Act represent a clear attempt to diminish the sovereignty of states | ||
| by depriving them of their jurisdiction over intrastate waters and | ||
| placing all water resources under the control of the federal | ||
| government; now, therefore, be it | ||
| RESOLVED, That the 82nd Legislature of the State of Texas | ||
| hereby express its opposition to any attempt by the federal | ||
| government to diminish the jurisdiction of individual states over | ||
| their intrastate water resources; and, be it further | ||
| RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official | ||
| copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to | ||
| the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of | ||
| Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the | ||
| members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that | ||
| this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a | ||
| memorial to the Congress of the United States of America. | ||
