[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 10 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CONSTRUCTED WATER CONVEYANCES REFORM ACT OF 1995

                                 ______


                               speech of

                          HON. JAMES A. HAYES

                              of louisiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 23, 1996

  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, last May, I stood in this very well and 
expressed my belief that clean water is for people--people who believe 
more in their State and community than in Federal mandates and 
regulations. I was pleased to see that the House endorsed these 
precepts as we overwhelmingly passed this Corrections Day legislation.
  There are many rice farmers in south Louisiana, and many more in the 
district of my good friend from California, Congressman Condit, who 
irrigate their fields or transport agricultural wastewater to treatment 
plants by utilizing man-made ditches. Although the number of these 
systems in Louisiana has dwindled over the last decade, the cost of 
planting with such canals is approximately half of the cost of the 
current most common irrigation method--pumping private well water.
  Among the reasons for the aforementioned switch from low-cost to 
high-cost irrigation were undoubtedly costs added by requirements of 
the Clean Water Act. The current law compels States to establish water 
quality standards for waters of the United States. Water quality 
standards identify designated uses such as swimming, fishing, and 
drinking and criteria necessary to achieve these uses. Incorrect past 
interpretations have required farmers to meet water quality standards 
for swimming, fishing, and drinking, uses beyond the intentions for 
many man-made water conveyance systems.
  H.R. 2567, the Constructed Water Conveyances Reform Act, is intended 
to afford States necessary flexibility in setting water quality 
standards, if purposes of man-made water conveyances are not compatible 
with designated uses and were never meant to support recreation or 
aquatic life. I am also pleased that this legislation, as the first to 
come under the scrutiny of the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act, should 
reduce costs to States and local jurisdictions.
  These provisions are virtually identical to language which passed the 
House by a widespread bipartisan majority as part of H.R. 961, the 
Clean Water Act amendments. H.R. 2567 is an extremely non-controversial 
and commonsense solution to yet another overbearing regulatory problem 
for our Nation's farmers.

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