[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8610]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  PROPERTY RIGHTS EXEMPTION FOR FARMS

  (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, last Friday a Federal court in California 
made an almost unbelievable ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers 
could regulate the plowing of fields despite clear exemptions for 
normal farming activities in the Clean Water Act.
  Ruling against a family farm in my district, the court somehow found 
that the Corps was justified in attacking the farm for, believe it or 
not, planting wheat on land that had been used to grow wheat for 
decades. Wow. The nerve of this family, to grow crops on land 
historically used to grow crops.
  Rarely have we seen an administration distort the legislative intent 
of Congress as it has in this instance. The Army Corps and EPA are 
ignoring language that exempts ``normal farming, silviculture, and 
ranching activities such as plowing, seeding, cultivating, minor 
drainage, harvesting . . .'' and so on--exactly the activity that 
occurred in this instance. In other words, Congress clearly and 
unambiguously exempted day-to-day activities, and yet the 
administration continues working to try to regulate them.
  Mr. Speaker, we have enacted language I have sponsored to defund this 
type of lawless regulation, and yet the administration continues. We 
must rein in this executive overreach and develop reforms that end this 
abuse once and for all.

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