[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 187 (Tuesday, December 17, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H7287-H7288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NUTRIA ERADICATION AND CONTROL REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2024
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 8308) to reauthorize the Nutria Eradication and Control Act
of 2003.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 8308
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Nutria Eradication and
Control Reauthorization Act of 2024''.
SEC. 2. REAUTHORIZATION OF NUTRIA ERADICATION AND CONTROL ACT
OF 2003.
(a) In General.--Section 3(e) of the Nutria Eradication and
Control Act of 2003 (16 U.S.C. 8102(e)) is amended by
striking ``2025'' and inserting ``2030''.
(b) Technical Correction.--Section 3(a) of the Nutria
Eradication and Control Act of 2003 (16 U.S.C. 8102(a)) is
amended by striking `` `Secretary'),'' and inserting ``
`Secretary')''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) and the gentleman from California (Mr.
Huffman) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas.
General Leave
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on H.R. 8308, the bill now under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arkansas?
There was no objection.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Representative Harder's legislation
which would reauthorize the nutria eradication program and existing
funding levels through 2030.
Nutria are invasive rodents native to South America that were
imported to the United States in 1899 for fur production. Since then,
the nutria population has exploded in places like northern California,
Oregon, the Louisiana bayous, and the Chesapeake Bay. These rodents
eat, dig, and trample healthy wetland habitats, causing significant
erosion and habitat damage to native ecosystems.
When this legislation was first enacted in 2003, an estimated 17
percent of the Chesapeake Bay's marshlands were estimated to have been
destroyed by nutria. Due to the aid of this program, nutria eradication
efforts have been very successful.
For example, in Maryland, they have been declared eradicated. In
Louisiana, where more than 423,000 acres were damaged or destroyed
between 2002 and 2021, over 5 million nutria have been taken.
I thank Representatives Garret Graves and David Valadao for co-
leading this bill with Congressman Harder.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve
the balance of my time.
Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation by my colleague
from northern California, Representative Josh Harder.
This bill would reauthorize the Nutria Eradication and Control Act
through 2030. This will benefit Maryland, Louisiana, and California,
enabling them to manage and eradicate this destructive, invasive
species.
The chairman described a little bit about the nutria and how it came
to the United States. The reason it is such a problem is it breeds very
rapidly, has destructive tendencies towards native wetland vegetation,
which has led to erosion and displacement of native species. It can
lead to levee breaches and the introduction of diseases and parasites
that threaten humans, livestock, and pets.
These effects pose severe threats to our national wetlands which are
essential habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife and which act as
buffers from extreme weather events.
To give you an example, according to estimates, had measures not been
adopted to control and eradicate the species in Maryland's Chesapeake
Bay, nutria could have destroyed 17 percent of the bay's marshes in
just 50 years.
In 2003, the Nutria Eradication and Control Act authorized the
Secretary of the Interior to provide financial assistance to Maryland
and Louisiana for a program to eradicate or control nutria and restore
marshland that they had damaged.
In 2020, my friend, Representative Josh Harder, passed a bill through
Congress that amended that legislation to include California. That was
a very timely law because California faced a rapidly expanding breeding
population of nutria in the San Joaquin Valley and adjacent areas.
The Nutria Eradication and Control Act has significantly reduced
nutria populations in all three States. In Maryland, they were entirely
eradicated from the Chesapeake Bay in 2022. In California, nutria
captures peeked in 2020 and have been steadily declining, but they are
not yet fully eradicated. That is why this bill is needed. It would
ensure the critical work of eradicating this destructive, invasive
species can continue through fiscal year 2030.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve
the balance of my time.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Louisiana (Mr. Graves), my good friend who I believe may be wearing, if
I am not mistaken, a nutria hide suit tonight.
Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Westerman for
the recognition.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California, Mr. Huffman, and I
legislatively agree on approximately nothing. This is truly an anomaly.
This legislation is something that he and I absolutely agree upon. We
have worked together on it. I thank the other gentleman from
California, Mr. Harder, for the introduction. We have worked together
on this legislation for years.
Nutria are an unbelievably invasive species. Coastal Louisiana loses
a football field of wetlands approximately every 90 minutes. A football
field of land is lost, which is a result of wave action and it is a
result of saltwater intrusion, a result of subsidence, a result of
replumbing of coastal Louisiana in a destructive manner. Nutria
absolutely contribute to that.
Mr. Speaker, what happened between probably the late 1950s to the
early 1990s, there was a huge fur trade. Tens of millions of nutria
were actually harvested to provide fur coats. That market declined. As
a result, the population of nutria just absolutely exploded. In fact,
one nutria can provide on average about 13 offspring a year.
[[Page H7288]]
You do the math very quickly. Mr. Chairman can do the math very
quickly. Actually, I take that back. The gentleman is from Arkansas. I
will do it for him.
They can proliferate very, very quickly and have a profound impact.
They will burrow into levees. They found that they have made these 150-
foot burrows that actually compromises flood protection infrastructure
like levees. It actually puts our communities in jeopardy. They will
eat the vegetation. They will eat all the way down to the roots, and
the roots are actually what hold everything together, what hold our
coastal landscape together.
What this legislation does is that it helps to put a bounty program,
to ensure that we can come in and we can actually harvest and we can
retrieve these nutria to prevent the proliferation that goes today from
Maryland all the way to California, down to the coast of Louisiana, to
prevent this impact to habitat that exacerbates our coastal resiliency
and ecological productivity all across the United States.
I thank Mr. Harder, my friend from California, for working with us on
this. This is a reauthorization bill. Members all across the political
spectrum support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I will say it again. My good friend, Mr. Huffman, from
California and I rarely agree on legislation. We absolutely, absolutely
agree on this one. I ask all Members to please support this. This is
very helpful. It actually prevents disaster dollars. It improves
ecological productivity and certainly will help with the resiliency of
my home State of coastal Louisiana.
Mr. Speaker, as I close, the chairman commented on my attire. I want
to remind him it is Christmastime. It is Christmastime, and these are
colors that are festive and relevant to the time of year.
I think he might have noted that I resemble a nutria or something
like that. Mr. Speaker, I have no idea what the gentleman from Arkansas
is talking about. This is absolutely topflight attire for Christmas
2024.
While I respect my friend, the chairman of the committee, sometimes
he is simply in error.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this legislation, and I thank my
friend from California and my friend from Arkansas.
Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, when the last nutria in the United States
is eradicated, it will not be missed, but the gentleman from Louisiana
will be missed. It has been a pleasure serving with him. He is
colorful, both in his rhetoric and in his fashion. We appreciate him
and wish him well.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from northern California (Mr. Harder).
Mr. HARDER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huffman for
yielding. I thank my friend from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), for his
leadership and his sense of style. We are certainly going to miss him
and all of the work that he has done to make this critical legislation
a reality.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is dead simple. All it does is reauthorize
funding to advance eradication efforts for this invasive rodent which
is already causing millions of dollars in damage in 18 States including
California, Louisiana, and Florida.
These swamp rats threaten our world-class farmland, our critical
flood control infrastructure, and our water quality.
With their massive nacho cheese-colored orange teeth, nutria can eat
25 percent of their body weight in vegetation every single day,
breaking down our levees and harming our waterways.
To make matters worse, these invasive rats weigh upwards of 40
pounds. One female nutria, to do the math for my friend from Louisiana,
can reproduce 200 offspring every single year.
This means that if we don't get this bill done, these nutria will
continue to expand and ravage our country, unless the strategic
wildlife management plans actually reduce their growth.
This is our last chance to secure 5 additional years of nutria
eradication efforts for affected districts across the Nation, and we
know that it can work. Our efforts have already shrunk nutria
populations across the country. In 2018, the Chesapeake Bay region
successfully eradicated nutria from their communities after almost two
decades.
{time} 1845
We are learning from that in California and Louisiana. This shows
that we have the wildlife management techniques that can ensure that we
can continue to move forward.
We are reaching a critical point in nutria control efforts. This year
alone, we have experienced a 55 percent increase in detected nutria
cells, and we are on track to, unfortunately, have a record-breaking
year for captive nutria right now.
We must reauthorize these eradication efforts so we can stop the
destruction and damage in my district and others like it across the
Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass this bill to keep our
levees, waterways, and agricultural lands safe from these dangerous,
invasive swamp rats.
Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on
this very important bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield
myself the balance of my time to close.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 8308 would reauthorize a program that has proven to
be very effective in protecting our country's vital wetlands and
marshes from a destructive, invasive species.
While great work has already been accomplished in controlling these
invasive pests, continuing to ensure our native species of plants and
animals are able to recover and thrive is crucial for future
generations.
Mr. Speaker, I again thank my colleagues for their diligent work on
this bill. I urge all Members to support this commonsense, bipartisan
legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 8308.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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