Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Authorization Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in a very important discussion with regard to the waters of the United States and the proposed rule by the EPA.

The good Senator from Missouri, I, a Senator from Wyoming and--as has been already said on the floor--about 30 of us in total are proposing an amendment to the sportsmen's bill which is currently under consideration on the floor--an amendment that would address the regulatory overreach by the EPA and, specifically, their proposed waters of the U.S. regulation.

The amendment we have is very simple, very straightforward. It is relevant to the legislation that is currently on the floor and should be brought forward for a vote. It is amendment No. 3453, and as I said it deals with the waters of the United States.

I am going to take just a minute to read it because it is very simple and very straightforward and could be dealt with in a very expeditious way. Obviously with 29 Senators supporting it, it is an amendment that we should be voting on. This is a clear example of an amendment where this body needs to take a stand, and it is one that should receive a vote as part of this sportsmen's legislation.

So I will read from the amendment:

In General. Neither the Secretary of the Army nor the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall--

(1) finalize the proposed rule entitled ``Definition of 'Waters of the United States' Under the Clean Water Act'';

(2) use the proposed rule described in paragraph (1), or any substantially similar proposed rule or guidance, as a basis for any rulemaking or any decision regarding the scope of the enforcement of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.

(b) RULES. The use of the proposed rule described in subsection (a)(1), or any substantially similar proposed rule or guidance, as the basis for any rulemaking or any decision regarding the scope or enforcement of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act shall be grounds for vacation of the final rule, decision, or enforcement action.

So very simply, what we provide is that the EPA cannot move forward with the proposed waters of the U.S. rule. It is appropriate because in essence, as my colleague from Missouri very accurately described, the EPA has gone way beyond its jurisdiction on this rule.

EPA alleges that it is responding to confusion in regard to the proposed Waters of the U.S. rule that it is getting from farmers and ranchers across our country. The fact is that is not the case. What EPA is doing is they are expanding their jurisdiction dramatically under an argument that the Supreme Court did not make, but an argument, rather, that the EPA is making that under what they call ``significant nexus'' they are empowered to regulate waters far beyond navigable bodies of water.

This is something I think affects almost every industry sector, but I am going to bring it back to a discussion of our farmers and ranchers and private property rights, which are, in fact, impacted by this proposed rule to talk about why it is so important that we have an opportunity to vote on this amendment and to defeat the proposed rule.

America's farmers and ranchers and entrepreneurs go to work every day to build a stronger Nation. Thanks to these hardworking men and women, we live in a country where there is affordable food at the grocery store and where a dynamic private sector offers Americans the opportunity to achieve a brighter future. In these difficult economic times the Federal Government should be doing all it can to empower those who grow our food and create jobs. Yet instead regulators are stifling growth with burdensome regulations which generate costs and uncertainty.

The proposed rule by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the waters of the United States is exactly the type of regulation that I am talking about.

The waters of the United States rule greatly expands the scope of the Clean Water Act with regulations over America's streams and wetlands.

If we look at the chart I brought, we can see it is not just affecting our farmers and ranchers, it goes far beyond that. For example, it affects the power industry, the oil and gas industry, the construction industry, and the manufacturing industry. Almost anything you can think of is impacted by this regulatory overreach. It is clearly a power grab by the EPA, and it needs to be checked.

The Supreme Court has found that Federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act extends to navigable waters. We are not arguing with the EPA's ability to regulate something like the Missouri River or a lake that is a navigable body of water, but the Supreme Court has also made it clear that not all bodies of water are navigable or under the EPA's jurisdiction.

What has our farmers and ranchers so concerned is that the Corps and the EPA went far beyond lakes and rivers. This new proposed rule would bring EPA permitting, reporting, enforcement, mitigation, and citizen lawsuits to ephemeral streams. Ephemeral streams are really dry land most of the time. To a farmer, an ephemeral stream is simply a low area across the field. It brings tributaries into it--tributaries which are all ditches that carry any amount of water that eventually flows into a navigable body of water. Think about that. Ditches. All waters that are deemed adjacent to other jurisdictional waters, including dry ditches and ephemerals, plus any other waters that the EPA has determined to have a significant nexus. In real-world terms, these categories could bring burdensome regulations to a vast number of small, isolated wetlands and ponds. It is hard to see, but that is what we tried to depict on this chart. It is almost any type of water anywhere you find it.

For those of you who have not had the opportunity to visit with a farmer from my State of North Dakota, know that dealing with excess water is a common issue, to say the least, particularly in recent years. Most farmers could tell you that just because there is water in a ditch or a field one week doesn't mean there is going to be water in that field or ditch the next week. It certainly doesn't make that water worthy of being treated the same as a navigable river or lake. It defies common sense. A field with a low spot that has standing water during a rainy week and happens to be located near a ditch does not warrant Clean Water Act regulation from a legal or, as I have said, commonsense perspective.

The Corps and the EPA have responded to these concerns by saying they are going to exempt dozens of conservation practices, but these exemptions are extremely limited and they do not cover many Clean Water Act rights. For example, the farmer with a low spot in his field next to the ditch described above--as I just explained--may now be sued under the Clean Water Act's section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. Think about that. Now the farmer faces the risk of litigation and litigation costs for using everyday weed control or fertilizer applications among other basic and essential farming activities.

Let me get this right. The EPA is saying: We are doing this because this is going to help farmers somehow understand what they have to do.

So the EPA goes beyond navigable bodies of water--let's take a State such as Ohio, for example. They are going to go beyond the Great Lakes and beyond the Ohio River, and the EPA is now going to extend their regulatory jurisdiction to water wherever they find it--in a ditch or on a farm--and they are going to regulate that, and they might give that farmer or rancher an exemption, and somehow they are helping and clarifying things for that farmer or rancher? It defies common sense.

Farmers and ranchers have to work through uncertain weather and markets to ensure that America is food secure, and they do an amazing job of it. They are the best in the world. Sixteen million people in this country are either directly involved in agriculture or indirectly involved in agriculture. We have a positive balance of payments in agriculture. We have the lowest cost, highest quality food supply in the world. Now the EPA by its own volition is going to go out and make it harder and more expensive and more difficult for our farmers and ranchers to do what they do better than anyone in the world. Farmers and ranchers have to work through uncertain weather and markets to ensure that we have food security. They don't need the burden of additional regulations and litigation, and they certainly don't need that burden under the auspices of the EPA saying that somehow this is going to help. Well, that is not the case.

I offered a very similar amendment in the Appropriations Committee in the energy and water section. The night before we were to have our full Appropriations Committee meeting, at 7:30 that night, that bill, the Energy and Water bill, got pulled, so we didn't have our appropriations vote the next morning.

The amendment I had prepared simply would have defunded this proposed regulation, but because there was bipartisan support for this amendment, we are not going to get a chance to vote on it.

Twenty-eight other Senators and I have been here on the floor this afternoon.

The Senator from Missouri was just here. The Senator from Wyoming was here earlier. Others have been here. I am here now. There will be more. So here we stand. We are on a sportsmen's bill, this is a relevant amendment, and the question is, Why aren't we voting on it? It has bipartisan support and 29 cosponsors. It is something that is clearly important not just to our farmers and ranchers but really to businesses and industry across this great country. So why aren't we voting on it? If somebody wants to come down and make an argument that they are for it, they can do so. But when all is said and done, the way this body works is by voting and determining where the majority falls.

I ask my colleagues, why in the world are we not voting on this amendment that is incredibly important to our farmers and ranchers and to businesses and to industry and to the people of this country? As I said, we didn't get a chance to vote on it in committee, and here we are on a bill where it is relevant. Are we going to get a chance to vote on it now? And if not now, when?

The majority rules, so let's have a vote. Let's give everybody a chance to stand and be counted. Let's have our vote, and let's stand up for the American people and make sure we strike down this proposed waters of the United States regulation.

With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source