Number: RL33483
Title: Wetlands: An Overview of Issues
Authors: Claudia Copeland, Resources, Science, and Industry Division 
Abstract: Wetland legislative activity in the 110th Congress centered broadly on two issues. One was on wetlands conservation provisions in the 2008 farm bill, which was enacted in June 2008 (Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, P.L. 110- 246). The new law reauthorizes and increases the acreage enrollment cap in the wetlands reserve program, with a goal of enrolling 250,000 acres annually, and extends provisions to enroll up to a million acres of wetlands and buffers in the Conservation Reserve Program. Other agricultural conservation programs, while lacking explicit wetlands protection provisions, are still likely to be beneficial to wetlands. The second major area of legislative interest centered on proposals to reverse Supreme Court rulings that addressed and narrowed the scope of geographic jurisdiction of wetlands regulations under the Clean Water Act. This interest arises because federal courts have played a key role in interpreting and clarifying the limits of federal jurisdiction to regulate activities that affect wetlands, especially since a 2001 Supreme Court ruling in the so-called SWANCC decision and a 2006 ruling in Rapanos v. United States. House and Senate committees held hearings on legislation intended to reverse the SWANCC and Rapanos rulings (H.R. 2421, S. 1870 - the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act).
Pages: 22
Date: November 25, 2008