Welcome to the UWAG Website.

The Utility Water Act Group, UWAG, is a voluntary, non-profit, unincorporated group formed in 1973 and comprised of individual energy companies and two national trade associations of energy companies: the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), and the American Public Power Association (APPA). The individual energy companies operate power plants and other facilities that generate, transmit, and distribute electricity to residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional customers nationwide.

Membership Profile:  UWAG’s members own and operate a wide variety of generating facilities, ranging from wind, solar, and hydroelectric to nuclear and fossil-fuel fired units.  Their operations are integral to the safe, reliable, and affordable supply of electric power on which the United States depends.  UWAG members are leaders in the power industry’s transition towards renewable energy sources; they are investing in new technologies, working to strengthen and expand the transmission grid, and making other resource improvements to support those technologies.

Focus on Water-Related Environmental Programs:  Clean Water Act issues that affect UWAG members are numerous and significant, both for existing operations and for development of new projects, including renewable energy facilities.  For example, the § 404 permit program governs discharges of dredged and fill material to navigable waters; such permits often are required in order to construct new generation, transmission, and distribution projects and maintain existing facilities, including the significant portions of the nation’s electrical grid for which UWAG members are responsible.  The NPDES permit program also is crucial to all kinds of generation facilities, which are required to obtain permits for discharges of pollutants to navigable waters from “point sources,” including point source discharges of storm water from industrial activities.  And the limitations, standards, and other requirements implemented via those permitting programs (such as nationally uniform technology-based limits, instream water quality standards, and requirements relating to cooling water) have important implications for UWAG members’ current facilities and projects under development.  Clean Water Act permitting also can trigger a host of other associated federal requirements, including under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), that UWAG members must navigate to maintain existing operations and develop new projects.

Collaborative Approach of UWAG:  Working together as a group, with advice from legal counsel, allows UWAG members to cost-effectively participate in the development and implementation of Clean Water Act-related requirements by federal and state agencies.  UWAG has filed detailed comments on countless EPA, Corps, and other agency proposals, seeking always to ensure that the agencies have all the relevant facts, look carefully at the law from all perspectives, and understand the practical implications of their regulations.  Membership in UWAG provides a platform for members to:

• Work together to understand, critically evaluate, and communicate on the often highly technical and complex scientific, statistical, technological, ecological and economic underpinnings of emerging or proposed Clean Water Act-related regulations; and

• Participate in agency rulemakings under the Clean Water Act and related environmental statutes and in litigation arising from those rulemakings to advocate for regulations that are environmentally protective, effective, reasonable, and clear and support the reliable and cost-effective supply of energy.

UWAG advocates on behalf of its members in agency proceedings and, where necessary, in litigation but does not lobby Congress.  With the concurrence of the membership, UWAG may consult with and provide input to the policy and legislative efforts of association members (APPA, and NRECA).