The Clean Water Act is the major law designed to control the pollution of our lakes, rivers, and streams. On January 8, 1987, Congress passed a bill to strengthen and reauthorize the Act, but President Reagan vetoed it. The bill authorized appropriations of $18 billion through fiscal 1994 in federal aid to state and local governments for construction of sewage treatment plants and authorized more than $2.14 billion for other water pollution control programs. 

This vote was on a Dole (R-KS) substitute to reduce funding from $18 billion down to $12 billion through fiscal 1994. This substitute, which was supported by President Reagan, would have eliminated the state revolving loan fund and the non-point source program to curb polluted runoff from farms and urban areas. Environmentalists had fought hard to get those provisions into the bill. The Dole substitute was rejected by a vote of 17-82 on January 21, 1987. The Senate subsequently passed the pro-environmental reauthorization proposal and then overrode the President's veto (see also House vote #1). NO is the pro-environmental vote.