The Water Quality Act of 1987: A Major Step in Assuring the Quality of the Nation's Waters

August 1987
Citation:
17
ELR 10311
Issue
8
Author
Elliot P. Laws and Lawrence R. Liebesman

In the most dramatic fashion possible, the centenary Congress of the United States made the Water Quality Act of 1987 (WQA)1 its inaugural piece of legislation. The law was enacted on February 4, 1987, after being vetoed by President Reagan on January 30, 1987.2 The law represents the first major revision to the Clean Water Act (CWA)3 since 1977 by clarifying certain areas of the law as well as granting new powers and responsibilities to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and states.

The current framework for the Clean Water Act was established in the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments. In response to the difficulties experienced with the water quality standard approach in effect since 1948, Congress created a technology-based program that is enforced through a permit program called the National Pollutant Dischcarge Elimination System (NPDES). The Act was amended significantly in 1977 to, inter alia, increase the emphasis on the control of toxic pollutants.

Mr. Liebesman is an attorney with the Harker law firm in Washington, D.C. He was formerly a senior trial attorney in the Environmental Defense Section of the Justice Department's Land and Natural Resources Division. Mr. Laws is a trial attorney in the Environmental Defense section. They have been actively involved in litigation under the Clean Water Act and were co-counsel in Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA (No. 80-1607) involving challenges to EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System regulations pending in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The views expressed in this Article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of EPA, the Justice Department, the Corps, or any other federal agency.

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