Tom Carper

One of the things that Senator Capito and I try to do is develop consensus on difficult issues.

Through Sackett, the Supreme Court has weakened one of our bedrock environmental laws, and harms will be felt nationwide.

I think we have been locked in a bit of a cycle and not thinking as creatively as we can in the rulemaking process.

I am going to be looking for consensus and implementing a lot of stuff that we have authored and enacted.

We have been remarkably successful, not entirely successful, remarkably successful on a wide range of issues.

I do think that we are locked in a circular pattern here, and that one, we need to be more thoughtful in terms of rulemaking.

I think these concerns miss the point. We just had a radical, I think, a sweeping reduction in water protections.

I know we can't pass laws to tell water how to flow.

I do also want to emphasize that back in 1972, the staff was worried and the Senators were worried about federalism and constitutional limitations on their authority.

I also disagree that Sackett means we have lost a lot of authority.

Today, I believe the Supreme Court got it wrong, with all due respect, in the Sackett decision.

I think it is a moral issue, and it is something that we have a moral imperative to make sure we get it right.

As a matter of impacts, we have heard that the loss of protections for over half of our Nation's remaining wetlands and millions of miles of streams will lead to more flooding, more polluted waters, and unfortunately, harm to wildlife.

I think that is really important that we understand, and we dig a little deeper.

Businesses need certainty and predictability.

The Clean Water Act has lofty goals, and then it has some nonregulatory programs, and some regulatory programs.

I happen to support strongly, don't fill the void left by the Sackett decision?

We will see you on the floor later today.

I think it is a critically important piece.

We are just regular guys and gals. Welcome. Thanks for that testimony, especially for your close.

We should think long and hard before eliminating protections for more than half of our wetlands.

The Sackett decision, in my view, has jeopardized nearly a half-century of progress under this bedrock environmental law.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court failed to recognize this link in May of this year when the conservative majority upended more than four decades of agency practice and precedent based on the original intent of the law.

Thanks to champions like Senator Ed Muskie, a Democrat from Maine, ... Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972.

As a matter of science, we have heard that wetlands and more than a million miles of streams are inextricably linked to downstream water quality.