America's Conservation Enhancement Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a co-chair of the Chesapeake Watershed Task Force in support of the Chesapeake Bay Provisions within America's Conservation Enhancement Act. I am proud to represent Virginia's 3rd Congressional District, located near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay which President Reagan declared a ``national treasure'' in 1984, a declaration President Obama echoed in 2009. Unfortunately, President Trump has not supported the bipartisan effort to restore the Bay, proposing to slash funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program, a misguided step that I am proud to have worked with my colleagues across the aisle to correct.

America's Conservation Enhancement Act represents a crucial opportunity to support the ongoing restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) mandate, some progress has been made in restoring the Bay. Current increases in underwater grasses and the blue crab population indicate these efforts are working, however, more resources and continued partnership are necessary to ensure that these gains are maintained and that the Chesapeake Bay is restored. The Chesapeake Bay provisions included in this bill would make significant progress, not just in improving the health of the Bay, but also in conserving habitat and increasing access to restoration throughout its 64,000 square-mile watershed.

I am especially pleased the America's Conservation Enhancement Act includes Chesapeake WILD, a bill I introduced with Reps. Wittman and Sarbanes, fellow co-chairs of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Taskforce, and Senator Van Hollen. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is well equipped to leverage their expertise in wildlife and habitat conservation beyond their reserves and throughout the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. My bill fosters such partnerships by creating a grant program for on the ground restoration efforts to be carried out by the FWS. In addition to conserving fish and wildlife habitat; increasing access to recreation; mitigating flooding; and improving drinking water quality, the grant program this bill creates will also contribute to the precedent-setting effort to conserve the Chesapeake Bay.

America's Conservation Enhancement Act also includes a bill led by Rep. Sarbanes and Sen. Cardin that would reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails grant program. The pandemic has reminded many of the many benefits of outdoor recreation yet, for far too many, parks, trails, beaches, and other recreational areas are largely inaccessible. The reauthorization of this grant program will help remedy that by increasing access to recreation in the Bay Watershed and I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the bill.

America's Conservation Enhancement Act also includes critical legislation, led by my colleagues Rep. Luria and Sen. Cardin, to reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Program. In 1978, my first year as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, I was part of a joint Virginia-Maryland legislative advisory commission focused on determining what actions were necessary to address Bay issues. We concluded that restoring the Bay would require more than just Virginia and Maryland, but rather, the collaboration of the entire watershed. That remains true today and the level of collaboration required is made possible by the Chesapeake Bay Program.

I am also proud to have introduced this legislation with my colleagues which would also authorize an incremental increase in spending for the Bay Program, reaching $92 million annually by 2025. Strong funding for the Bay Program leading up to 2025 is essential because that is the date by which the EPA, along with the six Bay watershed states and the District of Columbia have committed to making the Bay fishable and swimmable.

Passage of America's Conservation Enhancement Act is a major step towards meeting that agreement. As critical as these measures are to the ecological and economic health of the region, we also recognize that pollution knows no boundaries. As Wendell Berry, the great poet, philosopher, and farmer wrote, we all ought to ``do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.'' The restoration this bill supports throughout the Chesapeake Bay Watershed does more than just improve the health of the Bay--it enhances carbon sequestration, protects wildlife, improves the quality of water entering the Atlantic, and sets an important precedent for the restoration of other large watersheds and multi-jurisdictional cooperative environmental agreements.

I thank the Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Energy and Commerce for their work on this essential legislation and urge my colleagues to support it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source