The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it would overhaul enforcement of the Clean Water Act, as lawmakers sharply criticized the agency’s decade-long lapses in punishing polluters.

At a daylong hearing before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said that agency officials “are falling short of this administration’s expectations for the effectiveness of our clean water enforcement programs.”

“The time is long overdue for E.P.A. to re-examine its approach to Clean Water Act enforcement,” said Ms. Jackson, who was confirmed to her position in January. She added that the agency would set strict benchmarks for state regulators, eventually compel companies to submit electronic pollution records so violations could be detected and punished more easily, and “develop more innovative approaches to target enforcement to the most serious violations and the most significant sources.”

One approach will probably include a series of enforcement actions against companies and municipalities that have violated the Clean Water Act, according to people with knowledge of the E.P.A.’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly.