Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BERGMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am here today to offer my amendment to H.R. 7023.

Michigan's First District is home to more than 2,000 miles of Great Lakes coastline. It is by far the most of any congressional district, and it touches three of the five Great Lakes.

For those of us who call Michigan home, the Great Lakes play an invaluable role for our natural ecosystems, communities, economies, and our general way of life.

Protecting our lakes is a unifying goal that crosses all political lines.

My amendment is simple. It would clarify that nothing in this legislation would affect the longstanding ban on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

To be clear, I don't believe a reasonable reading of H.R. 7023 would directly lead to drilling activities in our Great Lakes. Nonetheless, if there is one thing I have learned in my years in the military and here in Congress, Mr. Chair, you can't always trust the Federal bureaucracy to do the reasonable and right thing.

The vital importance of the Great Lakes to those of us who live near them demands certainty and security. This is a concrete assurance that these protections, which have wide bipartisan support, will stay in place.

This is especially true when we are discussing permitting under the Clean Water Act, including for energy producers.

With this protection included, H.R. 7023 will be able to properly balance sound environmental stewardship with responsible infrastructure development and cut the amount of red tape.

Providing regulatory certainty and clarity while maintaining longstanding protections, like the ban on Great Lakes drilling, is not a zero-sum game. We can and must do both.

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Mr. BERGMAN. Mr. Chair, explicitly maintaining protections that prevent oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes will provide certainty for the millions of Americans who call the region home while we work to improve Federal permitting.

Mr. Chair, once again, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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