Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Expansion

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise today to submit for the Record an article written by Bobbie Frank, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts and published on July 16, 2011, in the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. The article's title is ``Muddy waters: EPA, Army Corps Seek to Define More Jurisdiction as Federal.''

I have concluded, just as this article has, that the Clean Water Act, CWA, jurisdictional guidance being proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, allows the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EPA to regulate waters now considered entirely under State jurisdiction. This unprecedented exercise of power will allow EPA to trump States rights, and vitiate the authority of State and local governments to make local land and water use decisions. This is particularly troubling when we have seen no evidence that the States are misusing or otherwise failing to meet their responsibilities.

Enormous resources will be needed to expand the CWA Federal regulatory program. Not only will there be a host of landowners and project proponents who will now be subject to the CWA's mandates and costs of obtaining permits, but an increase in the number of permits needed will lead to longer permitting delays. Increased delays in securing permits will impede a host of economic activities in Wyoming and across the United States. Commercial and residential real estate development, agriculture, ranching, electric transmission, transportation, energy development, and mining will all be affected, and thousands of jobs will be lost.

In May of this year, 19 Senators joined me in a letter to EPA expressing our strong opposition to this guidance. I will continue to fight to protect our States from this Washington power grab.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article to which I referred.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,

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