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Manufacturers are experiencing costly hurdles because of unnecessarily complex permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency should take action now, the NAM told the agency’s Office of Water this week.

What’s going on: “[C]umbersome and overreaching permitting laws and regulations hold back progress, delay investments and impede manufacturing competitiveness,” the NAM told the Office of Water on Tuesday.

• The NAM, in response to a request from the office for public comment and feedback on “regulatory uncertainty” associated with Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, urged the EPA to take specific steps to ease manufacturers’ burdens.
• “[M]anufacturers have noted difficulties in securing the necessary authorizations under the CWA for dredge and fill permits and other discharges into navigable waters of the U.S.,” the letter continued, adding that “water quality certification under Section 401 of the CWA has posed challenges in instances when certifying authorities exceed the scope of their statutory mandate.”

The background: In 2020, the EPA issued a rule clarifying the scope of Section 401—but the following year, it announced it was revising the rule. In 2023, it issued the revision, partially reversing the 2020 rule.

Why it’s important: The 2023 revision to the rule falls “short of providing manufacturers with needed certainty in the permitting process to invest and hire in America.”

• Absent clear guidance from the EPA, in some cases the state officials given the task of determining compliance under Section 401 of the CWA have gone beyond the scope of their remit and blocked industrial activities, “imped[ing] interstate commerce to the detriment of energy development and manufacturing competitiveness.”

What should be done: “The EPA should take additional action to reinterpret scope of certification under Section 401 in line with the 2020 rule,” NAM Director of Transportation and Infrastructure Policy Max Hyman said. “Manufacturers need certainty in the permitting process, and the NAM supports enforceable deadlines for certification, not to exceed the absolute maximum of one year to act on a request.”