of income each year for the travel, tourism, recreation, and sporting sectors of the economy of the United States. (15) Regionally specific protected water resources, such as prairie potholes in the upper Midwestern prairies, pocosins in the Atlantic coastal plain, playa lakes in the southern High Plains, and Carolina and Delmarva bays along the eastern coast of the United States, provide unique and critical benefits to their surrounding regions, including sustainable water quality and availability, groundwater recharge, wildlife habitat, and ecological benefits. (16) Activities that result in the discharge of pollutants into the Nation’s protected water resources, including through dredging and filling, are commercial or economic in nature, and, in the aggregate, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. (17) Restoring and maintaining the quality of, and regulating activities affecting, the Nation’s protected water resources is essential to fulfilling the United States treaty obligations. (18) Restoring and maintaining wetlands and other protected water resources is essential to North American wildlife, hunters, and anglers. (19) Restoring and maintaining the quality of, and regulating activities affecting, the Nation’s protected water resources is necessary to protect Federal land and waters from degradation. 4. Protected water resources (a) Definitions Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act ( 33 U.S.C. 1362 ) is amended— (1) by amending paragraph (7) to read as follows: (7) Protected water resources (A) In general The term protected water resources means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters (and their tributaries), including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent and ephemeral streams), wetlands, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution. (B) Exclusions The term protected water resources does