Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I rise today to seek support for amendment 77 to H.R. 3354, the Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, which is supported by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and key voted by the National Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, Heritage Action for America, and FreedomWorks.

Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been guided by the idea that every dollar spent by the Federal Government must be scrutinized. I took this principle to heart as I examined the President's budget request, which stated: ``Everyone believes in and supports safe food supplies and clean air and water.

But the agencies of the Federal Government have gone way beyond what was intended by the Congress.''
Madam Chair, while traveling around my district this August, I heard the same sentiment put more plainly: ``Washington is off the rails.'' As our national debt grows in excess of $20 trillion, each of my 15 grandchildren is being saddled with a $61,000 share of the debt. Now, Madam Chair, my 16th grandchild is on the way. I would really like to start tackling Washington's spending problems now before grandchild 16 joins us in early December.

I am encouraged by the leadership of President Trump's administration with its budget request, but I strongly believe Congress must do its part to stop this debt from crushing our Nation. That is why I have submitted an amendment that would reduce EPA appropriations by $1.869 billion to the administration's requested level of $5.655 billion.

In his testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt emphasized the need for the EPA to get back to the basics of statutory authority of ensuring access to clean water, clean air, and land.

Madam Chair, the amount of overreach and wasteful spending the EPA is responsible for is endless. Allow me to share with you a few recent examples.

For overreach: first, look to Sackett v. EPA, where the EPA imposed $75,000 cost per day on a couple for placing gravel on dry land to build a home within the existing subdivision.

And then there is Andy Johnson, the Wyoming rancher who was facing $20 million in fines for his stock pond, which the EPA alleged violated the Clean Water Act. This is despite the fact that stock ponds were exempt from Federal law, and that he had obtained the necessary permits. It took Mr. Johnson 5 months in court to reach a winning settlement which freed him from any obligation to pay the EPA.

The waters of the United States rule, which I am happy to see this administration working to roll back, embodied the overreach perfectly, as the Obama EPA pushed the limits of its power under the Clean Water Act to even regulate some ponds and manmade ditches.

Now, for wasteful spending: there is an Environmental Justice Program, a program that is supposed to support business development in disadvantaged communities, which funded an effort to increase knowledge of environmentally-friendly nail salon practices in California nail salons.

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The estimated price tag was $73 million over the course of 2016-2025.

There was an EPA environmental education program which funded ``educational projects'' that have included learning how to build rain gardens, the significance of urban forests, poster contests on sun protection, asthma awareness and radon and schoolyard habitat restoration.

There was even $300,000 in grant money going to fund the Chesapeake Bay Journal, an environmental newspaper in Maryland.

Madam Chair, these are just a handful of recent instances of the EPA's bureaucratic waste at the expense of the American taxpayer.

The Presidential budget request for the EPA provides the roadmap for trimming the Agency back to focus on its core mission. Funding for the Agency is focused on infrastructure, elimination of duplicative programs and programs that extend past the EPA's statutory authority, and ensuring that funds are not lost to bureaucratic waste.

Madam Chair, Congress has an incredible opportunity to practice what we preach in tackling an out-of-control Federal Government.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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