[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 114 (Thursday, July 14, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H4978-H4979]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   EPA OVERREACH IMPACTS AGRICULTURE

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the Clean Water Act, as created, was 
intended to protect our national waterways from industrial pollution. 
For the past 40 years, the State and Federal partnership under that law 
has helped improve our lakes and rivers.
  However, in recent years, under this administration, we have seen the 
Army Corps of Engineers and EPA continuously overstep their authority 
to an

[[Page H4979]]

unprecedented degree, despite clear opposition and legal barriers.
  In fact, in 2012, the Supreme Court condemned EPA's practice of using 
the law to persecute farmers and ranchers with absolutely no proof or 
due process offered to these landowners.
  Again, early this year, the Supreme Court shut down EPA's ongoing 
attempts to exempt their actions limiting property rights from 
traditional challenges, one of our Nation's most fundamental rights.
  This is not a fight over clean water; it is a fight about Federal 
control. The creators of this law never intended for bureaucrats to 
have control of nearly every ditch, puddle, or pond they can get their 
hands on, while trying to regulate everyday activities like plowing, 
explicitly exempted under the law. Yet we continue to see this 
administration use their own very imaginative interpretations to harass 
property owners.
  It is certainly unfortunate we have to pass additional legislation to 
require bureaucrats to stay within the law, but that is what we will 
do. I have an amendment in the appropriation bill just passed that will 
help do that and rein it in.

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