Water: Democrats Focus on Permits.

U.S. Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are concerned about two recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports on enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act. EPA's Inspector General reported in late May that the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System program, designed to protect rivers and other waterways, needed to update its permitting program. But the report found that the cost of revising the permits was escalating too fast, delaying the changes. A second EPA study found a significant drop in enforcement of that program.