[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17035]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, after a wave of strong bipartisan 
opposition, after being stayed by two Federal courts, the 
administration is still pushing its flawed waters of the United States 
regulatory expansion. However, this week, the Senate will finally 
consider rejecting this regulatory overreach.
  While the administration describes their plan as a minor 
clarification, it is, in fact, the most sweeping expansion of Federal 
regulatory authority in our Nation's history.
  Mr. Speaker, this map of my home State of California demonstrates 
exactly how far the EPA's proposal would reach. Fully 95 percent of 
California, depicted in black, would fall under EPA's jurisdiction, 
though you will notice that the city of San Francisco, in white, does 
not. That is because San Francisco, the source of so much of this 
excessive regulatory mindset, long ago paved over every waterway in the 
city, and who knows what is in the runoff rainwater flowing off the 
streets of that city.
  It isn't just farms that would be hurt by the EPA's plan. Virtually 
every business and homeowner in the State would be faced with 
regulation at the whim of Federal bureaucrats under a rule written to 
ensure that the EPA has any jurisdiction anytime it wants.
  Do we really believe the Federal Government should play a role in 
local land use decisions, even down to whether individual homes could 
be expanded? This is exactly the power the EPA claims that it needs. 
Dry streambeds, manmade ditches, even temporary puddles which exist 
only during rainstorms are all locations over which the EPA wishes to 
claim jurisdiction. Even Imperial County, a desert with virtually no 
natural waterways, would fall under the EPA's control with this plan.
  Perhaps the most concerning isn't just that the EPA is seeking to 
expand its authority. That is the nature of any bureaucracy, and it is 
to be expected from this administration. Most concerning is that we 
can't even trust the EPA with authority to regulate navigable waterways 
it already has or to respect exemptions included in the Clean Water 
Act.
  In my northern California district, residents have experienced 
regulatory actions so ludicrous that we can't make them up. In Tehama 
County, a farmer was fined for planting wheat in a manner that the 
government claimed damaged so-called navigable waters, which begs the 
question anyway: What is or what should be determined to be a navigable 
waterway? Is it a puddle or is it something you can actually run a boat 
up and down?
  Never mind that the farm I mentioned has been recognized as a wheat 
allotment by the USDA for decades or that the farmer had simply been 
continuing to farm the land exactly as it has been farmed for 
generations. Instead, government bureaucrats wanted this activity 
stopped, and they used their power to prevent this farming activity.
  In another instance, the government used the Clean Water Act to 
attack a family farm for shifting to a more efficient irrigation 
system--yes, for shifting to more efficient irrigation system. One 
might think that is a laudable goal, especially during a drought period 
in California in the West, but the government claimed this activity 
would negatively impact the Sacramento River, which is a full 7 miles 
away from this farm and unconnected to that farm by any waterway.
  Of course, in both of these instances, the government sanctioned 
farmers for activities that are clearly exempt under the Clean Water 
Act as specified by Congress, who makes the laws. Even in the EPA's 
only early draft, they exempted mud puddles, but they just couldn't 
quite leave them out. They had to include them as well in their 
regulation.
  The ongoing efforts of the administration to ignore exemptions for 
normal farming activities like planting crops and maintaining 
irrigation systems are in clear violation of the Clean Water Act, as 
written by Congress. In fact, language I sponsored to defund this sort 
of regulation of exempt activities was passed by both Houses last year 
and signed into law in December, yet the EPA persists in its illegal 
activities.
  Mr. Speaker, when Congress can't trust Federal agencies to 
judiciously use authority they already hold, when we can't trust 
agencies to follow clear congressional direction, how can we possibly 
consider granting or allowing them even more power?
  It is time the Senate joined the House in rolling back this proposal 
and remind this administration that Congress writes the law, not 
bureaucrats.
  

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