A letter signed by a number of CWN member groups addressed to President Obama can be found through a link on this page. The letter urges the Administration to finalize the important Waters of the US guidance and rulemaking efforts.

Congress passes federal omnibus and President Obama signs the funding package on December 23rd. The Good News: Thanks to your hard work, most of the dirty water riders did not make the cut! The Bad News: A few unfortunately did! Update on final federal budget package follows. Our thanks to Josh Saks from National Wildlife Federatiion and Martha Noble from National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition for contributing updates for this report. In early 2012 we will make sure to send out a detailed final report so stay tuned. 

CWN Executive Director Natalie Roy recently spoke at Save the Illinois River's (STIR) annual membership meeting.  

On July 13th, the House of Representatives passed HR 2018, the so-called Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, by a vote of 239-184. A sad but not surprising outcome. To see how your Member of Congress voted check HERE.

There is an assault taking place on Capitol Hill and across the states to weaken laws that keep our drinking water and waterways clean. It is important that decision makers know that supporting anti-environmental legislation will turn back the clock to times of dirtier rivers, lakes, streams and coastal areas. Read an opinion piece Natalie Roy penned  regarding onerous legislation that is being debated on Capitol Hill. 

Special Friday Afternoon Pre-River Rally Meet and Greet in Charleston, South Carolina with Clean Water Network & key partner Water Protection Network: MAJOR SUCCESS

Thanks to everyone who participated in Clean Water Week 2011 here in the nation's Capitol. The sessions were tremendously engaging, the workgroup meetings productive and the side meetings with EPA and OMB extremely useful. Photo to the left is Executive Director Natalie Roy and Hackensack Riverkeeper Hugh Carola with the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. at one of the many events during CWW.  We also had a great Mississippi River Basin briefing on Capitol Hill thanks to our new Mississippi River Basin leaders and workgroups members. CWW participants also paid many visits to their congressional member offices to discuss important clean water issues, particularly the disastrous environmental federal budget cuts being proposed for fiscal year 2011. Thanks to so many folks for coming here and putting in so much time and effort. It was a busy two days to say the least! We will follow-up with more specific results from the workgroup meetings and sessions next week. All presentations will be posted over the next week or so as well. Photos of the many events that took place can be found by clicking HERE.

Thanks again for participating and making CWW 2011 a terrific event!

Very early Saturday morning, while most of the nation was sleeping, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an aggressive plan to slash the budgets of critical federal environmental programs.

CWN member EarthJustice is currently running an anti-mountaintop removal mining campaign called Mountain Heroes. Part of this important project is a website that features photos from and stores about those mountain heroes that fight mountaintop removal mining on the front lines every day. The people of Appalachia need all of our help in opposing and possibly bringing an end to this incredibly environmentally destructive mining process. A cool feature of the website dedicated to this project is the ability for people can also upload photos yourself, a pet or a place you care about to demonstrate why you oppose mountaintop removal. Please take a moment to visit this site and read some of the stories these mountain heroes have to tell.

Thanks to our friends at National Wildlife Federation for bring this story to our attention and to Caroline Wick for composing the blog post below on a recent decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals of Virginia that requires the Army Corps of Engineers to revisit its determination that the Clean Water Act applies to a 4.8 acres tract of wetlands in Chesapeake, VA.

The Waters Advocacy Coalition, a "clean water" group that is a front for farm lobbyists, mining companies and other polluters recently met with the Obama Administration about the  Waters if the U.S. guidance drafting effort. The stated goal of this organization is to "Protect the Clean Water Act," but when you look at the groups that comprise this Coalition, it is more or less a laundry list of major players that oppose stringent clean water regulations to protect our waters. In their priorities section, their main goal is to lobby against the Clean Water Restoration Act/America's Commitment to Clean Water Act. So, in the end, this is a "clean water group" that is in fact fighting stronger clean water laws. Click the following link for a full list of groups that participated in the meeting with the Obama Administration.

Clean Water Network was joined by over 130 other groups in submitting a sign-on letter addressed to Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley calling on the Obama Administration to develop a strong rule to reaffirm the broad scope of the Clean Water Act. The rule is needed because of the failure of the 111th Congress to act on America's Commitment to Clean Water Act / Clean Water Restoration Act. The legislation would have reaffirmed that all Waters of the U.S. are protected under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). It would have provided a statutory fix to the misguided SWANCC and Rapanos Supreme Court decisions that created massive confusion about what waters are IN and what waters are OUT in regards to CWA protections.