HR 1179 · 115th Congress 2017–2019, ended

Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act

Introduced Feb 16, 2017 Originated House Sponsor Tom Rice R-SC

Fact sheet

Latest action · Feb 17, 2017 Referred to the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

Progress

Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.

  1. IntroducedFeb 16, 2017
  2. Passed HouseNot reached
  3. Passed SenateNot reached
  4. To the PresidentNot reached
  5. Became lawNot reached

Summary

Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act

This bill amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to revise requirements concerning citizen suits. Litigation costs (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees) must be awarded to the prevailing party, thus the bill removes a court's discretion to award the fees. A prevailing party is defined as the party that prevails on more than half of the claims at issue.

The bill repeals the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deny or restrict the use of any area as a disposal site for dredged or fill material when the discharge of those materials would have an unacceptable adverse effect on municipal water supplies, shellfish beds and fishery areas, wildlife, or recreational areas.

Current law requires compensatory mitigation to replace the loss of aquatic resource functions in a watershed when a permit to discharge dredged or fill materials into navigable waters has unavoidable impacts on aquatic resources. This bill prohibits government entities from carrying out compensatory mitigation in excess of existing regulatory requirements.

Cosponsors 65

Members who signed on, in the order they did. Signatures ran from Feb 16, 2017 to Oct 10, 2017, with 21 there on the day it was introduced.

SeatCosponsorSigned on
R-WVAlexander X. MooneyOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-AZAndy BiggsOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-GAAustin ScottOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-UTChris StewartOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-VADave BratOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-NCDavid RouzerOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-AZDavid SchweikertOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-WIGlenn GrothmanOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-CAJeff DenhamOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-SCJeff DuncanOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-TXJodey C. ArringtonOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-SCJoe WilsonOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-TXK. Michael ConawayOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-TXKay GrangerOriginalFeb 16, 2017
R-NVMark E. AmodeiOriginalFeb 16, 2017
Show all 65 cosponsors

Actions 3

Everything that happened, newest first.

  1. Feb 17, 2017Referred to the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
  2. Feb 16, 2017Introduced in House
  3. Feb 16, 2017Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Subjects

Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: Environmental Protection.

Text 1

Each version as it was printed, newest first.

  1. Feb 16, 2017Introduced in House

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Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov.