[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1208-H1210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INCLUDING CALIFORNIA IN NUTRIA ERADICATION AND CONTROL ACT OF 2003
Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 3399) to amend the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of
2003 to include California in the program, and for other purposes, as
amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 3399
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. NUTRIA ERADICATION.
The Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003 (Public Law
108-16) is amended--
(1) in section 2--
(A) in subsection (a)--
(i) in paragraph (1), by striking ``Wetlands and tidal
marshes of the Chesapeake Bay and in Louisiana'' and
inserting ``Wetlands, tidal marshes, and agricultural
lands'';
(ii) in paragraph (2), by striking ``in Maryland and
Louisiana''; and
(iii) by amending paragraph (3) to read as follows:
``(3) Traditional harvest methods to control or eradicate
nutria have failed. Consequently, marsh loss, loss of public
and private wetlands, and loss of agricultural lands are
accelerating.''; and
(B) in subsection (b), by striking ``the State of Maryland
and the State of Louisiana'' and inserting ``any State that
has demonstrated the need''; and
(2) in section 3--
(A) by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:
``(a) Grant Authority.--The Secretary of the Interior
(referred to in this Act as the `Secretary'), may provide
financial assistance to a State, in an amount that is in
proportion to the total impacted area of such State affected
by nutria, that has demonstrated to the Secretary sufficient
need for a program to implement measures to eradicate or
control nutria and restore marshland, public and private
wetlands, and agricultural lands damaged by nutria.'';
(B) by striking subsection (b);
(C) in subsection (d)--
(i) in paragraph (1), by striking ``the program may'' and
inserting ``a State program referred to in subsection (a)
may''; and
(ii) in paragraph (2), by striking ``the program may'' and
inserting ``a State program referred to in subsection (a)
may'';
(D) in subsection (e), by inserting ``to a State'' after
``provided'';
(E) in subsection (f), by striking ``$4,000,000'' and all
that follows and inserting ``$12,000,000 for each of fiscal
years 2021 through 2025.''; and
(F) by redesignating subsections (c) through (f) as
subsections (b) through (e).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Colorado (Mr. Neguse) and the gentleman from California (Mr.
McClintock) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado.
General Leave
Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
[[Page H1209]]
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the measure under consideration
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Colorado?
There was no objection.
Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in support of H.R. 3399, the Nutria Eradication and Control
Act of 2003.
In case you were not lucky enough to see the stuffed nutria that the
distinguished gentleman from California brought to our hearing in the
Natural Resources Committee, you are in luck, because I understand that
it is making another appearance here today on the floor.
You can see firsthand that nutria are a large, invasive rodent
species that have infested and damaged wetlands across the United
States.
This species was originally introduced to the United States in 1899
for fur production, but its rapid breeding and destructive burrowing
became a huge problem in areas like the Gulf of Mexico and the
Chesapeake Bay.
In 2003, by way of background, Congress passed the Nutria Eradication
and Control Act to provide assistance to Maryland and Louisiana to
eradicate or control nutria and to restore wetlands destroyed by
nutria. According to some estimates, if these measures had not been
adopted, nutria could have destroyed 17 percent of the Chesapeake Bay's
marshes in a 50-year period.
While this program has been successful in Maryland and Louisiana, now
the nutria have invaded habitats across the United States.
Representative Harder's much-needed bill would expand the Nutria
Eradication and Control Act of 2003 to include any State with a nutria
infestation issue and make them eligible for funding under the act.
It is important to consider this bill in the context of the state of
our wildlife and habitat today. Species are going extinct at a faster
rate than ever before in human history. Habitat loss is a major driver
of the extinction crisis that we are experiencing, and so protecting
and restoring wetlands from invasive species like nutria is an
important piece of the puzzle for protecting biodiversity in our
country.
In the face of the climate crisis, we must do all we can to protect
habitat and wildlife, and eradicating this destructive invasive species
is a step in the right direction.
I thank my distinguished colleague from California for his leadership
in introducing this bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
It is easy to joke about the nutria, more commonly called a ``swamp
rat,'' but their proliferation in regions like California is a growing
threat to water infrastructure throughout the State.
Louisiana has suffered this invasive species since the 1930s; the
Chesapeake since the 1940s. They are now proliferating in California,
where they destroy irrigation systems, undermine dams and levees, erode
riverbanks, displace native wildlife, and lay waste to aquatic
vegetation.
This legislation amends the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of
2003 and reauthorizes funding for the program until fiscal year 2025.
Currently, Maryland and Louisiana are the only States eligible for
funding, yet the problem is national. According to estimates, there
could be nearly a quarter million of these destructive creatures in
California within 5 years if we don't take action now.
California has enough problems of its own making to deal with. It
requires the same assistance as provided to other parts of the country
to control this invasive infestation, and this bill broadens the
eligibility nationwide to do so.
During committee consideration, this measure was amended to more
closely resemble the language included in my legislation, H.R. 5217,
the Water Optimization for the West Act, which makes this a national
program rather than an earmark.
I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. Harder) and his nutria, whose name is
Nellie.
Mr. HARDER of California. Madam Speaker, people see swamp rats all
the time roaming the halls of D.C., but I believe this is actually the
first time in American history that we have a taxidermied swamp
creature on the actual floor of the House of Representatives.
This here is my good friend, Nellie the Nutria. She has nacho-cheese
colored teeth, can weigh up to 40 pounds, she can eat 25 percent of her
body weight every single day, and she has an exponential rate of
growth.
She may look cute to some people, but Nellie and her friends are a
real menace, and farmers across California's Central Valley and
residents of the Louisiana swamp can tell you, too, how serious of a
threat these giant swamp rats pose.
Nutria can destroy crops, irrigation canals, wetlands and native
species. And their exponential growth rate makes them a real problem.
One female, like Nellie here, can lead to 200 offspring in a single
year. The State of California estimates that if we don't do something
about this problem, there are going to be 250,000 nutria in our State
within the next 5 years.
Nellie's family in Louisiana have already caused an immense amount of
damage over the last 100 years. And my Republican colleagues on this
bill, Mr. Graves and Mr. McClintock, can attest to the real havoc these
swamp rats cause.
My bill would simply revive a program that the State of Maryland used
to almost entirely eliminate the infestation in the Chesapeake Bay,
where Nellie here came from originally. That program uses a variety of
strategies to control and eradicate this invasive species. It ended up
saving a lot of money in the long run, and my bill is going to bring
back that proven program and make more States eligible for help.
This is a tiny investment compared to what will be necessary if we
wait any longer.
I want to thank all my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who
joined me on this bill and ask for support in stopping this invasion.
There is a lot of bickering that goes on in this Chamber, but I am
proud that this is something Mr. Graves, Mr. McClintock, and myself
could find something that unites us, which is draining the swamp, not
just in Washington, but also in California and Louisiana, and the rest
of the country.
{time} 1345
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).
Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I look at the nutria, and I
have to disagree with my friend from California. I feel like I see
swamp rats on the floor all the time. But I do appreciate him bringing
the actual species here to help folks understand what it is that we
deal with.
Madam Speaker, I have come on this House floor many times to describe
the coastal challenges that we have in Louisiana. We have lost 2,800
square miles of our coast. And I remind my colleagues that if the State
of Rhode Island lost 2,800 square miles of their coast, we would have
49 States today.
Nutria is part of the problem. It is an invasive species. The
population in my home State is nearly 4.5 million people, yet we have
an estimated 20 million nutria. It is an extraordinary figure.
If we could count them in the Census, we would have an additional 27
Members of Congress. We are having infestation without representation,
and we need to do something about it.
In Louisiana, we have a thing where if you can't beat it, you eat it.
So, we have even tried. We have tried to do nutria fajitas. We have
tried to fry it. We have tried everything. It is not my favorite, Madam
Speaker, but this really is a huge problem.
Very seriously, we have 20 million nutria, and they cause the
destruction and damage of tens of thousands of acres of our coastal
wetlands every single year.
As my friends Mr. McClintock and Mr. Harder from California brought
up, it is things like levees, productive
[[Page H1210]]
estuaries, irrigation canals, and other things that have devastating
consequences.
This legislation does take some of the lessons learned from the
programs in Maryland and Louisiana and expands upon the flexibility of
dollars to actually not just work on eradication efforts but also do
some restoration work.
I thank the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Neguse, my friend from
Colorado; Mr. Harder; as well as the ranking member, Mr. McClintock,
for their work on this. This is a bipartisan bill. It is based upon and
enacts improvements that we have seen as a result of this program being
carried out in Louisiana and Maryland.
I am looking forward to this going over to the Senate, and I strongly
urge adoption of this important bill to help get this invasive species
under control to help protect our communities.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, after the gentleman's description, I
am going to resist the temptation to comment on the unique culinary
traditions of my friends in Louisiana.
In California, we don't want to eat them. We just want to get rid of
them. That is what this bill is all about.
I urge its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I very much enjoyed this fascinating
debate, and I appreciate the leadership of our colleague from Louisiana
on this issue for many years and, of course, our colleague from
California for initiating the bill before the House.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support it, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 3399, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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