[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 404]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       REJECT EPA'S POWER GRAB OF THE WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES

  (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, this week we will send a measure to the 
President that rejects the EPA's waters of the United States power 
grab, a measure that the Senate has already joined us in supporting.
  The EPA's plan would grant it jurisdiction over fully 95 percent of 
my home State of California, allowing an unaccountable Federal agency 
to insert itself into land use decisions across the State. In my 
district, residents have experienced Federal actions so ludicrous that 
I can't make them up.
  In Tehama County, a farmer was fined for planting wheat in a manner 
that the government claimed damaged navigable waters. Never mind that 
the farm has been listed as a wheat allotment by the USDA for decades.
  In another instance, the government used the Clean Water Act to 
attack a family farm for shifting to more efficient irrigation systems, 
this during a drought in California. Imagine getting fined for saving 
water.
  In both instances, the government sanctioned farmers for activities 
that are clearly exempt under the Clean Water Act.
  In fact, language I sponsored to defund the regulation of exempt 
activities was signed into law in December; yet, the EPA persists in 
these illegal activities.
  When Congress can't trust Federal agencies to use the authority they 
already have and when we can't trust them to follow clear congressional 
direction, how can we possibly consider granting them more power and 
more responsibility?

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