Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2007

ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 24, 2006)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I think Members back in their offices ought to know this, and this is a longstanding dispute between the States of Florida, Alabama and Georgia. What this amendment does is authorize $15 million or as much as $15 million to be spent by the Corps of Engineers to revise their manuals to try to interject their decisions into what is in court today.

The court proceedings are still going on. They are on appeal. And they are not only going to affect our three States, they are going to affect everybody who eats oysters because, as Mr. Boyd said, 90 percent of the oysters come out of the basin at the bottom of the Apalachicola River. These things do not need to be decided; the purity of that water in that basin or in those seven rivers does not need to be decided on the floor of the House by people who do not know what the right decision is that ought to be made.

It ought to be made in the courts in the deliberative process and not by some bureaucrat or not by Congressmen or -women who do not understand the issues involved. I urge a ``no'' vote.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov/