---
kind: "section"
citation: "33 U.S.C. § 1253"
title: "33"
title_heading: "Navigation and Navigable Waters"
number: "1253"
heading: "Interstate cooperation and uniform laws"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/33/1253"
units:
  - "Chapter 26 — Water Pollution Prevention and Control"
  - "Subchapter I — Research and Related Programs"
---

# §1253. Interstate cooperation and uniform laws

- (a) The Administrator shall encourage cooperative activities by the [States](/usc/33/1362.md?p=3) for the prevention, reduction, and elimination of [pollution](/usc/33/1362.md?p=19), encourage the enactment of improved and, so far as practicable, uniform [State](/usc/33/1362.md?p=3) laws relating to the prevention, reduction, and elimination of [pollution](/usc/33/1362.md?p=19); and encourage compacts between [States](/usc/33/1362.md?p=3) for the prevention and control of [pollution](/usc/33/1362.md?p=19).
- (b) The consent of the Congress is hereby given to two or more [States](/usc/33/1362.md?p=3) to negotiate and enter into agreements or compacts, not in conflict with any law or treaty of the United States, for (1) cooperative effort and mutual assistance for the prevention and control of [pollution](/usc/33/1362.md?p=19) and the enforcement of their respective laws relating thereto, and (2) the establishment of such agencies, joint or otherwise, as they may deem desirable for making effective such agreements and compacts. No such agreement or compact shall be binding or obligatory upon any [State](/usc/33/1362.md?p=3) a party thereto unless and until it has been approved by the Congress.

## Source credit

(June 30, 1948, ch. 758, title I, § 103, as added Pub. L. 92–500, § 2, Oct. 18, 1972, 86 Stat. 818.)