Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member, Mr. Rahall, for his great leadership and consider it a privilege to speak today.

Let me inform this House why it should vote down this death bill--yes, death bill.

This is a jar of algae, toxic to humans and animals. It was just drawn from Lake Erie, one of our great freshwater lakes, a drinking source for some 11 million people.

On August 2, this green muck filled with toxic microcystin surrounded the Toledo drinking water intake, leaving over half a million people with no safe drinking water for 3 days. It almost seemed surreal. One of America's biggest cities and regions with no fresh drinking water.

Now, the region that our watershed drains is 85 percent agricultural. How fortunate we are. In fact, it is the largest watershed in the entire Great Lakes, but allowing farm field runoff of manures and fertilizers, applied at four times the rate of 20 years ago, with excessive phosphorous and nitrogen that feed the growth of this green muck, is simply no longer acceptable.

The number of people who live in our tristate watershed totals 2 million, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and of course, with Canada even more; but the number of animals in the watershed is 10 to 15 times the human population. The manure load of those animals--compared to 20 years ago--spread on the land, even in the wintertime, contributes, with increasing rainfall, to the pollution that then drains to places like Toledo.

Utility rates are going up--what are they going to do? How are they going to afford the bills to pay to clean up the pollution from a massive tristate and, indeed, international watershed?

Instead of helping clean up our water for future generations, this Republican bill takes America backwards. Do you know what I say? Shame on you. Shame on you.

Today, the United States Environmental Protection Agency recognizes that harmful algal blooms are a major environmental problem in all 50 States, with severe impacts on human health.

The Toledo water plant and what happened to us is a severe warning for our country, and we better pay attention. Communities are incurring massive costs for water treatment as a result of pollution and toxic algae because our water plants have to somehow clean this mess up and then send fresh drinking water to our citizens. These costs are being paid not by the polluters, but by the ratepayers downstream at the receiving end of the muck--how unfair.

I am back here in Washington, fighting for our lake. Our citizens must turn this green muck back into blue water to sustain life itself. One of the ways we start is by defeating this bill. It is an embarrassment to the country at this point in our history.

I can tell you, to the people who still don't know what their future holds in places like Toledo and along Lake Erie, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. Reject the dead water direction in which it leads America because it isn't just this generation, but it is those that follow that we should be voting for here in this House. I urge defeat of this measure.

I want to thank Congressman Rahall and those who understand what it takes to build a great nation. Let us do something worthy in our time and generation.

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