[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PLUNDER OF COLFAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. In the Sierra foothills in northeastern California 
lies the little town of Colfax, a population of 1,800, with a median 
household income of about $35,000. Over the last several years, this 
little town has been utterly plundered by regulatory and litigatory 
excesses that have pushed this little town to the edge of bankruptcy 
and ravaged families already struggling to make ends meet.
  You see, Colfax operates a small wastewater treatment plant for its 
residents that discharges into the Smuthers Ravine. Because it does so, 
it operates within the provisions of the Clean Water Act, a measure 
adopted in 1972 and rooted in legitimate concerns to protect our vital 
water resources. The problem is that predatory environmental law firms 
have now discovered how to take unconscionable advantage of that law to 
reap windfall profits at the expense of working-class families like the 
townspeople of Colfax.
  In the case of Colfax, an environmental law firm demanded every 
document pertaining to the water treatment plant from the date of its 
inception. It then pored over those documents looking for any possible 
violations, including mere paperwork errors. By law, those documents 
include self-monitoring reports by the water agency itself, and any 
violation, no matter how minor, establishes a cause of action for which 
the law provides no affirmative defense, even if the violation is due 
to factors completely beyond the local community's control, including 
acts of God and acts by unrelated and uncontrollable third parties. 
Prove one such violation--and remember, the law allows for no 
affirmative defense--and you've just guaranteed the attorneys all of 
their fees, which in this case were billed at $550 per hour.
  As a result of this predatory activity, the town of Colfax is facing 
legal fees alone that exceed the town's entire annual budget. Families 
that are struggling to keep afloat just above the poverty level are 
fleeced by attorneys charging $550 an hour. But that's just part of the 
problem.
  The law requires constant upgrading of facilities to meet ever-
changing state-of-the-art regulations that have nothing to do with 
health and safety and with absolutely no concern for the prohibitive 
costs involved. In fact, Colfax is now required to discharge water 
certifiably cleaner than the natural stream water into which it is 
discharged. In Colfax's case, this required a $15 million expenditure, 
divided among 800 working-class residents, who are now paying $2,500 
per year just for their water connections. And once the town has met 
the standard, there's no guarantee that in 5 years it won't be told, 
Sorry, the rules have changed and you'll need to start over.
  Mr. Speaker, it's time to restore some form of rationality back to 
this law and to stop the plunder of small towns like Colfax. And Colfax 
isn't alone. Any community that operates a wastewater treatment plant 
is in the same jeopardy.
  No one disputes that we need to maintain and enforce sensible and 
cost-effective protections of our precious water resources; but 
legitimate environmental protections must no longer be used as an 
excuse for regulatory extremism and litigatory plundering of our local 
communities.
  Today, I'm introducing legislation to offer six reforms to protect 
other communities from going through the same nightmare as the people 
of Colfax:
  First, to limit private-party lawsuits to issues of significant 
noncompliance rather than harmless paperwork errors;
  Second, to shield local agencies from liability for acts that are 
beyond their control;
  Third, to give local agencies 60 days to cure a violation before 
legal action can be initiated;
  Fourth, to allow communities to amortize the cost of new facilities 
over a period of 15 years before new requirements can be heaped on 
them;
  Fifth, to require a cost-benefit analysis before new regulations can 
be imposed;
  Sixth, to limit attorney fees to the prevailing fees of the 
community.
  Like many movements, the impetus for stronger environmental 
protection of our air and water was firmly rooted in legitimate 
concerns to protect these vital resources; but like so many movements, 
as it succeeded in its legitimate ends, it also attracted a self-
interested constituency that has driven far past the borders of common 
sense and into the realms of political extremism and outright plunder. 
I'm hopeful that we're now entering an era when common sense can be 
restored to environmental law in this session of the Congress.

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