existing protections under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. This regulation allows large-scale animal factories to foul the Nation’s waters with animal waste, allows livestock owners to draft their own pollution-management plans and avoid ground water monitoring, legalizes the discharge of contaminated runoff water rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, bacteria, and metals, and ensures that large factory farms are not held liable for the environmental damage they cause. In a 2005 Federal court decision ( Waterkeeper Alliance, et al. v. En­vi­ron­men­tal Protection Agency , 399 F.3d 486 (2nd Cir. 2005)), major parts of the rule were upheld, others vacated, and still others remanded back to the EPA. On November 20, 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency published a revised final rule which undermines environmental protection provisions by removing mandatory permitting requirements and allowing large animal farms to self-certify the absence of pollutant discharge activity. (iii) On March 19, 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency published a new rule regarding the Total Maximum Daily Load program of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act that regulates the maximum amount of a particular pollutant that can be present in a body of water and still meet water quality standards. The new rule withdrew the existing regulation put forth on July 13, 2000, and halted momentum in cleaning up polluted waterways throughout the Nation. By abandoning the existing rule, the Environmental Protection Agency is undermining the effectiveness of cleanup plans and is allowing States to avoid cleaning polluted waters entirely by dropping them from their cleanup lists. Waterways play a crucial role in the lives of the people of the United States and are critical to the livelihood of fish and wildlife. The result of dropping the July 2000 rule is that the restoration of polluted rivers, shorelines, and lakes will be delayed, harming more fish and wildlife and worsening the quality of drinking water. (iv) On December 2, 2008, the