[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 87 (Thursday, June 10, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1079]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




INTRODUCING THE CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION AND IMPROVEMENT 
                                  ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB GOODLATTE

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 10, 2010

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to join my colleague Rep. 
Holden in introducing the Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and 
Improvement Act.
  The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the U.S., is an incredibly 
complex ecosystem that includes important habitats and is a cherished 
part of our American heritage. The Bay Watershed includes all types of 
land uses, from intensely urban areas, spread out suburban development 
and diverse agricultural practices. But unquestionably the Bay is in 
need and worthy of our attention and concern and I believe everyone has 
a role to play in restoring it.
  I have long worked with my colleagues here in Congress to find ways 
to protect and restore the Bay. In fact, Mr. Holden and I worked very 
hard with the other members of the Agriculture Committee to establish a 
mechanism and a funding source in the 2008 farm bill for addressing 
issues related to protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The farm 
bill provided unprecedented incentive-based funding to help farmers and 
ranchers improve management practices, which would directly result in 
improving water quality in the Bay. We must now continue in our efforts 
to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay by reauthorizing the 
Chesapeake Bay Program.
  There are other proposals to reauthorize the Bay Program. The goal of 
all involved is the same, the continued health and vitality of the Bay, 
but the map to that health and vitality is being strongly debated. 
Unfortunately, proposals like the Presidential Executive Order, and 
legislation that would codify this order, would force more mandates and 
overzealous regulations on all of those who live, work, and farm in the 
Chesapeake Bay Watershed. This strategy will limit economic growth and 
unfairly overregulate our local economies. My colleagues and I 
recognized that we must form a proposal that does not pit the health of 
the bay against the strength and vitality of our local communities and 
that is why we rise today to introduce the Chesapeake Bay Program 
Reauthorization and Improvement Act.
  Instead of overregulation and intrusion into the lives and 
livelihoods of those who choose to make the Bay Watershed their home, 
our legislation allows States and communities more flexibility in 
meeting water quality goals so that we can help restore and protect our 
natural resources. Our bill sets up new programs to give farmers, 
homebuilders, and localities new ways to meet their water quality 
goals. This includes preserving current intrastate nutrient trading 
programs that many Bay states already have in place, while also 
creating a voluntary interstate nutrient trading program. Additionally, 
this bill creates a voluntary assurance program for farmers. The 
program will deem farmers to be fully in compliance with their water 
quality requirements as long as they have undertaken appropriate 
conservation activities to comply with State and federal water quality 
standards.
  Also, our bill makes sure that the agencies are using common sense 
when regulating water quality goals for localities. Our legislation 
requires the regulators to take into account the availability, cost, 
effectiveness, and appropriateness of practices, techniques, or methods 
in meeting water quality goals. This will ensure that localities are 
not being mandated to achieve a reduction in nutrient levels by a 
prescribed date, when no technology exists to achieve that reduction 
within that timeline.
  While our bill does a lot to improve water quality, we also call for 
more oversight over the Chesapeake Bay Program. For over 3 decades 
Congress has been working to preserve and protect the Chesapeake Bay. 
Despite the efforts of the federal, State, and local governments, the 
health of the Bay is still in peril. The participants in restoring the 
Bay include 10 federal agencies, six states and the District of 
Columbia, over one thousand localities and multiple nongovernmental 
organizations. This legislation would fully implement two cutting-edge 
management techniques, crosscut budgeting and adaptive management, to 
enhance coordination, flexibility and efficiency of restoration 
efforts. Neither technique is currently required or fully utilized in 
the Bay restoration efforts, where results have lagged far behind the 
billions of dollars spent. Further, this bill calls for a review of the 
EPA's Bay model. We often hear complaints from those who make good 
faith efforts to restore the Bay that their efforts are not being 
recognized by EPA's Bay model. EPA's model does not account for any 
voluntary measures being undertaken on farms to control nitrogen and 
phosphorous nor does it even account for some of the nitrogen and 
phosphorous reductions that are being achieved through government 
programs like USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program. 
Effectively, EPA is ignoring nutrient reductions that have already been 
achieved. Our legislation requires that an independent evaluator assess 
and make recommendations to alter EPA's Bay model, so that we can 
develop a model that will capture all of the nutrient reductions that 
are happening in the Bay.
  Madam Speaker, the people who call the Bay Watershed home are the 
ones who are the most concerned about protecting and restoring the 
Chesapeake Bay. Unfortunately, too often these hardworking individuals 
are cast as villains and placed in a position where restoring the Bay 
is pitted against the economic livelihoods of their communities. We can 
restore the Bay while also maintaining the economic livelihood of these 
communities. The Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and Improvement 
Act is the way we can do both. I look forward to working with my 
colleagues in the Congress, so that we can pass this important 
legislation and work to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

                          ____________________