Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, let me first of all begin by opposing the rule. This House is becoming much too closed. I would remind my Republican colleagues of the promises they made when they took over this place. They promised a more open and more transparent House of Representatives. What we have seen is closed and restricted rules time and time and time again. There is no reason why this can't be an open rule. So I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against the rule.

Secondly, with regard to the underlying bill, it is my intention to support the underlying bill, but I do have serious reservations. The proponents of this bill talk about the streamlining provisions that are in this bill that somehow streamline the environmental review process and that somehow the environmental review process causes delays.

I would remind my colleagues that the facts are clear that delays are caused by funding that doesn't correspond to the demand. The last WRRDA bill authorized over $23 billion in new projects, and since that time appropriations have been at $1.5 billion per year. The Ryan budget, which my Republican colleagues seem to love so much, will cut that by another third. Add to that sequestration and all the other budget cuts that my colleagues are proposing here, it is lack of money, not environmental reviews, that is causing the delays.

Further, environmental reviews are really the only way voters have any say about the Federal projects in their community.

We need a WRRDA bill, but we don't need to sacrifice the environmental review process or a process that allows our constituents to have a say on how projects proceed. I hope when this bill moves to conference committee with the Senate, we can fix some of these, I think, egregious problems with the bill with regard to the environmental review process.

We do need a WRRDA bill, and we also need a transportation bill. I would hope my colleagues on the other side could convince the Tea Party members to allow that to come to the floor because we have an aging infrastructure, not only in terms of water projects but in terms of highways, roads, and bridges. I could go on and on and on.

If we get this right, we can create some jobs. I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule, and support the underlying bill.

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