CRS-138 



SUMMARY 



Congress has expressed interest in wetlands through two principal ways. 

 The first has been the Federal Water Pollution Control Act — that is, the use 

 of a pollution control statute as the chief regulatory mechanism for protecting 

 existing wetlands from industrial, agricultural, and other activities that 

 would disrupt or destroy the fragile ecological systems located in these areas. 

 Congress has utilized this particular regulatory tool since 1972, when it 

 enacted section 404, even though the provision was not generally recognized 

 as a wetlands protection measure at that time. 



Following expansion of the section 404 program by several court decisions 

 in the mid-1970s, Congress responded and more directly addressed use of the 

 pollution control provision. In 1977, Congress enacted amendments intended to 

 limit and to specify the scope of the regulatory program, by exempting certain 

 activities and areas from the permitting requirements of section 404. Never- 

 theless, controversy about section 404 continues and has led to proposals to 

 restrict the geographic coverage of the program still further. 



The second way in which Congress has expressed interest in wetlands has 

 been more direct and has included enactment of several measures expanding 

 Federal authority to acquire wetlands for the purpose of safeguarding water- 

 fowl and migratory bird habitat areas. During the 1970s Congress passed 

 amendments to the Water Bank Act intended to keep pace with rising land costs 

 by increasing Federal payments to landowners who would conserve habitat areas, 

 rather than convert them to other uses, and to the "Duck Stamp Act" (now the 

 Migratory Bird Hunting Conservation Stamp Act) in order to raise additional 

 monies for new wetlands acquisition. These generic wetland measures tend 

 to focus on only one of the many functions of wetlands (namely, as habitat 

 areas) and their value to hunters and other supporters of migratory bird 



