APPENDIX

43a
regulations. Amicus United States suggests that we
delay ruling on the question whether stormwater
discharges from logging roads must obtain permits
under § 402(p)—that is, under Phase I regulations—
until EPA has responded to the remand. We have
just held that § 402(p) provides that stormwater runoff
from logging roads that is collected in a system
of ditches, culverts, and channels is a “discharge associated
with industrial activity,” and that such a
discharge is subject to the NPDES permitting
process under Phase I. Whether EPA might, or might
not, provide further regulation of stormwater runoff
from logging roads in its Phase II regulations does
not reduce its statutory obligation under § 402(p).
We therefore see no reason to wait for EPA’s action
in response to our remand in Environmental Defense
Center.
D. Summary
In some respects, we are sympathetic with EPA.
When the FWPCA was passed in 1972, EPA was
faced with a near-impossible task. The breadth of the
definition of point source discharge contained in
§ 502(14) meant that EPA was suddenly required to
establish an administrative system under which
enormous numbers of discharges would be subject to
a new and untested permitting process. Faced with
this task, EPA exempted several large categories of
point source discharges from the process in order to
avoid the burden imposed by the breadth of the definition
contained in § 502(14).
Recognizing the burden on EPA, as well as on
some of the entities subject to the NPDES permitting
requirement, Congress subsequently narrowed the
definition of point source discharge by providing specific
statutory exemptions for certain categories of