The new Clean Water Act will be a major change from the old one. This is going to be a comprehensive set of laws designed to protect wetlands and insure that the interests of the nation supersede the interests of the individual.

First, there will be a completely new government agency, most likely somehow connected to the EPA. It will be called the National Watershed Agency, and it will have a local office in every watershed in the country, as defined now by USGS hydrological units. It will also have a national office in Washington to coordinate the activities of the local offices. Each local office will have complete maps and computer models of wetlands and water flows within its watershed area. This will be part of a national database of information and maps on all wetlands in the country.

These new local offices will exist so that they can approve ALL new development in their watershed area. Any new development in their watershed coverage area will have to be approved by the local Watershed Agency. In order to approve applications, all new developments will be required to receive an environmental impact statement. In this environmental impact statement, the impact to the environment will be examined, will special attention being paid to the affect on wetlands and water pollution.

The Watershed Protection Agency will have the right to deny a permit if it feels that benefits of wetlands on the property outweigh the benefits of the development. If a permit is denied, the government will be required to purchase the property at fair market value within two years of the permit decision. If the government fails to purchase the property within two years, the owner can either continue to wait or else the property owner can take a tax deduction of 1.5 times the fair market value in return for handing the land over to the government.

If a developer is granted a permit for development, for every one acre of wetland destroyed, the developer will be required to purchase at least two acres in a wetland mitigation bank in the same watershed that the destruction occurred in. The local watershed agency will be required to insure that there are wetland mitigation credits available in their watershed area. In an optimal situation, there would be at least one wetland mitigation bank in each watershed area. However, it some areas that may be difficult, therefore local watershed agencies will be able to trade credits amongst themselves in some way to be determined in the future.

Local Watershed agencies will also be required to monitor the availability of land for sale in their district. All land that is for sale will be assigned a value depending on how valuable it is in regards to wetlands. This includes farmland or other land that use to be wetlands and could be converted. This information will be submitted to the national office where a national list of land to be purchased will be kept. Then the federal watershed agency will purchase the most valuable land available and convert it into wetlands through every year.

All of this land purchasing, either through denied permits or on the open market, will be funded by a 1 cent addition to the federal gas tax. This new tax will generate between 1.2 and 1.5 billion dollars every year. The rational behind implementing a gas tax to purchase this land is that increased use of gasoline correlates closely with increased development and environmental damage. The actual administrative costs of running this new federal agency will come out of the general budget every year. The money from the gas tax will be used solely to purchase land that is valuable to the national wetlands restoration effort.

All land that is purchase by the federal government will be protected forever unless there is a dire need for public development, but otherwise can never be sold or developed. Wherever possible, the land will be made available to the public.