HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 3

BY  WATTS, MASSIE, CHAMBERS, BYRNES, BAUDLER, FORRISTALL, L. MILLER, SODERBERG, DEYOE, S. OLSON, DRAKE, RAYHONS, SWEENEY, BRANDENBURG, and WORTHAN

A Resolution relating to the regulation of intrastate waters.

   WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved to the states, establishing federalism and state sovereignty as integral founding principles of American government; and
   WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) and in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006) held that the federal Water Pollution Control Act (the Clean Water Act) did not intend to grant federal authority over intrastate waters and that intrastate waters were not subject to regulation under the interstate commerce clause; and
   WHEREAS, legislation has previously been introduced in the United States Congress to expand the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction to include intrastate waters; and
   WHEREAS, the expanded jurisdiction under the proposed legislation would grant the United States Environmental Protection Agency broad and vague flexibility to interpret federal jurisdiction expansively, which the agency attempted to do under the current Clean Water Act and which the United States Supreme Court prevented the agency from doing; and
   WHEREAS, the proposed expanded jurisdiction would severely diminish state sovereignty over its natural resources, and would detrimentally involve the federal government in an inefficient and cumbersome effort to regulate highly localized water resources such as abandoned pits and ponds; and
   WHEREAS, jurisdiction over intrastate water resources is a role traditionally held by individual state governments in order to promote efficient and effective usage of intrastate water resources; NOW THEREFORE,

   BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, That the State of Iowa supports the continued sovereignty and jurisdiction of the states to regulate intrastate water resources and opposes any attempt by the federal government to diminish this jurisdiction unnecessarily.