Chesapeake Bay Accountability and Recovery Act of 2013

Floor Speech

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, in a moment I am going to be asking a unanimous consent request on some legislation that combines some work I have been doing and work the ranking member of the EPW Committee, my friend, the Senator from Alaska, has been doing. I want to make a brief statement first and then I am going to turn the floor over to the Senator from Louisiana.

I start by thanking Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Vitter for working with me on this important legislation. I also thank the bipartisan Virginia delegation on both sides of the Capitol, especially my friend Congressman Rob Wittman. He and I have worked on this initiative now for more than 4 years.

As we all know, the Chesapeake Bay, while located around Virginia and Maryland and Delaware, is actually a national treasure. It is the centerpiece of the culture and economy of many coastal communities in Virginia and in several neighboring States.

Restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay must be a national priority. Virginia and five other States, the District of Columbia, 10 Federal agencies, and more than 1,000 local governments have spent decades on this shared priority.

We have joined together over the years in a shared commitment to the Bay. We have worked across jurisdictional lines, across the political aisle, across every level of government in partnership with the private sector and with nonprofit groups such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

This important bipartisan legislation that we are going to be moving on shortly ensures that we maintain a Federal commitment to the partnership to restore the Chesapeake Bay. It also makes sure that during these challenging fiscal times every dollar spent on improving the health of the Bay produces real results.

The Chesapeake Bay accountability bill requires the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to prepare a crosscut budget. That means we will actually track where and how Federal and State restoration dollars are being spent throughout the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

This will allow us to track costs and match them to results. It means more accountability and it means more transparency to our combined efforts to restore this national treasure.

This bipartisan legislation is an important step forward in ensuring that the Chesapeake Bay restoration and preservation efforts remain effective, accountable, responsible, and transparent. In a moment I am going to urge all my colleagues to join us in approving it.

At this moment, I yield the floor to the ranking member, the Senator from Louisiana.

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Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for his comments and I will be happy to take the Senator and his whole family out to the bay again. I thank the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Alaska for working together. That is the way this is supposed to work. There are duck hunters in Virginia as well and they firmly support this legislation. I appreciate also the special considerations that need to be addressed in terms of the State of Alaska.

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