Fossil fuel companies and AI data centers are pressuring Washington to take away your state’s right to protect its own water. Tell your senators: keep fighting to protect the Clean Water Act.
For over fifty years, the Clean Water Act has protected our rivers, lakes, and drinking water from sewage and toxic waste.
Passed by Congress in 1972
1973Before a pipeline, dam, or industrial plant can discharge into your state’s rivers and lakes, your state gets to review the project and require protections for your water.
That check is called Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. It has been on the books since 1972.
A Senate bill written by a former pipeline executive would put federal energy regulators in charge and, in its sponsors’ own words, make sure “no single state can unilaterally block” a project.
The EPA has proposed a rule that narrows what your state is allowed to consider.
And the senators negotiating a permitting deal right now could trade away the rest.
Share of Army Corps permits that states denied under Section 401, by the EPA’s own count.
Nearly all the rest were approved or waived.
Average time for a state to finish a Section 401 review.
The law allows up to a year.
Denials reported by most states that answered a 2025 national survey of state clean-water agencies.
No state denied more than 3.5 percent of requests.
When reviews do run long, the causes are incomplete applications, unresponsive applicants, and understaffed state agencies. Gutting the law fixes none of that.
The association representing America’s largest drinking-water utilities warned the EPA that weakening this protection
“would shift the costs of providing safe drinking water from the polluting project to the ratepayer.” Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, February 2026
The ratepayer is you.
of voters say protecting the safety of our drinking water is important.
This isn’t a left-or-right issue.
Fifty-eight organizations, from riverkeepers to nurses, from Alabama to Oregon, wrote the Senate on July 1 asking it to leave Section 401 alone. Read the letter.
That’s the U.S. Capitol switchboard. Ask for your senator’s office. When someone picks up, say:
“Hi, my name is and I’m a constituent. I’m calling to ask the Senator to protect Section 401 of the Clean Water Act and oppose any other threats to our water in a permitting deal.”
