1. United States
2. N.C.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to oppose HR 3898, the "PERMIT Act," which passed the House in December 2025 and now awaits Senate action. This bill would undermine Clean Water Act protections in ways that threaten public health, drinking water safety, and our nation's waterways. HR 3898 strips protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council's 2025 analysis, this bill could remove federal protection from 38–70 million acres of wetlands and leave at least 86% of freshwater wetlands and over 75% of streams unprotected. These waters filter our drinking water, absorb floodwaters, provide habitat for wildlife, and sequester carbon—yet the bill would leave them vulnerable to pollution with minimal oversight. The bill prioritizes polluter profits over science. It allows EPA officials to exclude any waters from protection without public input or scientific review, and it lets pollution limits be set based on cleanup costs rather than public health and environmental science. This inverts the purpose of the Clean Water Act. It weakens pollution controls and extends permits. The bill doubles permit duration from 5 to 10 years, traps outdated pollution limits in place longer, and limits EPA's ability to require the best available pollution control technology. Companies can pollute with aging equipment for a decade without upgrading. It strips states and tribes of water protection authority. States and tribes would lose the ability to protect their own waterways from downstream pollution, removing a critical check on federal inaction. It eliminates legal accountability. The bill makes it nearly impossible to challenge bad permits—limiting lawsuits to 60 days, restricting who can sue, and preventing courts from vacating illegal permits. Polluters would operate with near-total legal immunity. It expands loopholes for dangerous pollution. The bill expands exemptions for pesticides, agricultural runoff, and fire suppression chemicals, and protects polluters who knowingly fail to report dangerous chemicals in wastewater. Clean water is not a partisan issue—it is a public health necessity. Drinking water safety, flood protection, and wildlife habitat depend on the Clean Water Act. HR 3898 dismantles these protections for the benefit of polluters at the expense of families, farmers, and communities across America. I urge you to vote against HR 3898 and protect our nation's waters.