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16 This history demonstrates that Congress was not writing on a blank slate in the CWA, which defines federal jurisdiction using the same terms used in the River and Harbor Acts: “navigable waters” and “the waters of the United States,” 33 U. S. C. §§1311(a), 1362(7), (12). As explained above, courts and Congress had long used the terms “navigable water,” “navigable water of the United States,” and “the waters of the United States” interchangeably to signify those waters to which the traditional channels-of-commerce authority extended. See. The terms “navigable waters” and “waters of the United States” shared a core requirement that the water be a “highway over which commerce is or may be carried,” with the term “of the United States” doing the independent work of requiring that such commerce “be carried on with other States or foreign countries.” The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall., at 563. The text of the CWA thus reflects the traditional balance between federal and state authority over navigable waters, as set out by The Daniel Ball. It would be strange indeed if Congress sought to effect a fundamental transformation of federal jurisdiction over water through phrases that had been in use to describe the traditional scope of that jurisdiction for well over a century and that carried a well-understood meaning.