Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the gentleman from Virginia's amendment.

The Total Maximum Daily Load is a mandatory diet to restrict nutrient and sediment runoff from point and nonpoint sources in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. EPA's proposed regulations will have a devastating economic impact on my constituents and throughout Pennsylvania. Unquestionably, the bay is in need and is truly worthy of our support, but this is just one more example of how EPA is trying to bypass congressional authority through backdoor regulations and unfunded mandates.

EPA has based the Chesapeake Bay TMDLs on its own model even though it is inconsistent with the models prepared by the Department of Agriculture. The head of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service has recently gone so far as to say EPA's data on conservation practice is erroneous. Agriculture is not receiving the credit it deserves towards reducing nutrient and sediment runoff; yet EPA is forcing the bay States to move forward on unreasonable mandates, using the agency's flawed bay model. EPA will not even perform an economic analysis of the TMDL when the proposed unquestionability will have severe economic impacts on our Nation's farmers and rural communities.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to vote in its favor.

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