Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUELSKAMP. Madam Chair, I rise today to speak in favor of the work the committee did in this bill to protect Americans from additional, unnecessary regulatory burdens. In particular, I want to thank them for protecting landowners in rural Kansas--and elsewhere across this Nation--from attempts by the Army Corps and the EPA to regulate, from Washington, every single drop of water that falls to the ground.

When it passed the Clean Water Act, Congress never contemplated and certainly never authorized a definition of ``navigable waters'' that covered roadside ditches, prairie potholes, water tanks, or farm ponds in Kansas or elsewhere.

This proposed rule by some bureaucrats in far-off Washington is a clear violation of the separation of powers within our Constitution. Ultimately, it is nothing more than a power grab of private property.

In practice, this rule would require Kansas farmers and ranchers to apply for costly permits--to apply for permission to perform routine farming activities like building a fence, fertilizing, or even plowing, and if our food producers have to pay more to comply with Washington's overregulations, Americans will see it in higher prices at the grocery store.

Madam Chairman, only in Washington would one try to define ``standing water'' in a ditch that is surrounded by prairie in Kansas as water that is capable of navigation. It is time for the administration to ditch this rule. Until then, this Congress should not spend a single penny in advancing this massive 370-page rule. I support the provisions in this bill.

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