Cramer- House Passes FY 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations

Press Release

Congressman Kevin Cramer released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill. H.R. 2028, the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which provides a total of $35.4 billion in discretionary funding for nuclear weapons activities, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Energy, and related agencies. The legislation includes $786,000 in Army Corps Investigations Feasibility money to study Red River basin wide flood protection solutions and $16.684 million for Army Corps operation and maintenance funding for facilities in North Dakota including Garrison Dam and Baldhill Dam. It also includes $25 million for ND Bureau of Reclamation facilities including Garrison Diversion and Heart Butte Dam.

The bill includes language to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from spending any funds to implement the "Waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule. It would have drastically expanded the EPA's and Army Corps of Engineers' authority over bodies of water including small ponds, creeks, ditches, and other occasionally wet areas, including those found on private property.

"While this provision only prevents implementing the WOTUS rule for the next fiscal year I'm working with other Members on a long-term solution to provide landowners and producers certainty the federal government will not have this expanded authority to control their private property. I expect to see this long-term solution on the House floor for a vote very soon. This administration's goal is to have jurisdiction over every puddle or could be puddle on every farm in every state. This is a gross violation of private property rights, it is a breach of states' rights, and the American people will not tolerate it. I am encouraged my colleagues listened to the overwhelming number of their constituents who complained about WOTUS and my hope is the Senate will pass this legislation and President Obama will sign it into law," said Cramer.

Congressman Cramer has consistently opposed the Waters of the U.S. rule and has called on the administration and the EPA to change course on numerous occasions, citing its devastating economic impacts, substantial regulatory costs, bureaucratic barriers to economic growth, and severely negative impacts on farms, small businesses, commercial development, road construction and energy production, as well as the fact waters are to be governed by states and not the federal government.

In 2014, Cramer released a highly detailed map of North Dakota developed in secret by the Environmental Protection Agency, likely for the purpose of expanding its regulation of water features. Investigations by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, of which Cramer was a member in 2014, revealed the EPA has assembled detailed maps of all waters and wetlands in every state with no intention of releasing them to the public.

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