The Supercommittee

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I want to talk about the four amendments I filed on this bill. I will say right upfront, all four are supported by my Missouri colleague, Senator McCaskill, so they are bipartisan amendments. Two of them would deal with a property ownership issue created by an infringement by Federal regulators, by FERC. They both deal with a private power generating dam that was built in 1931. It created a lake called Lake of the Ozarks, and over the years private property owners have constructed literally thousands of homes that on this map beside me are impacted. The houses are the red dots. The other areas in there are thousands of buildings of one kind or another on a lake that is one of the most used lakes in the country. Some people go to those houses on the weekend and a lot of people live there all the time. This is their home.

Since the 1950s, the Lake of the Ozarks has been the most visited lake by boaters in the Midwest. It is a lake that is not owned by the Federal Government. Tourism at this lake totals about $200 million annually. Because of this tourist industry there is lots of private investment.

In 2004, Ameren Electric, the current owner of the lake--it was built, again, in the 1930s by Union Electric, which later became Ameren Electric--applied to FERC to renew their license to generate power at Bagnell Dam, which is the dam that was built to impound the water that created the Lake of the Ozarks. This application also made sure that virtually all of the homes and structures would no longer be subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but FERC rejected this request. The result has been a back and forth between Ameren and FERC and the property owners for the past 7 years.

This finger-pointing by everybody involved--except the property owners, who simply think they own the property--has been nothing short of outrageous and it has left property values, businesses, tourism, tax revenues, and jobs in question. FERC has taken its role too far. FERC is acting as though they are the Corps of Engineers and somehow the taxpayers of America own this property instead of the taxpayers who actually are the individual taxpayers who own the property.

On every acre of land covered by water, taxes have been paid. Property taxes have been paid on that land since the first dream that this lake would be created--so 80 years of taxpayer money. This is not a Corps of Engineers work where the Corps of Engineers can say we own the lake, we own the shoreland, we are going to decide what you are going to do. FERC has taken its role too far and it is engaging in a pattern of enforcing shoreline management rules.

My first amendment would simply modify the Federal Power Act by changing the definition of what could be considered a ``project purpose.'' Currently, FERC recognizes public recreational use of land but not private ownership. We would not say they could no longer recognize public recreational use of land, but we would say that they have to recognize private ownership. If FERC, at a lake such as this, can decide access to the land, why can't FERC or some other Federal agency drive by a farmer's farm and say: That is a nice pond out there. I will bet it has some fish in it. Why don't we ensure that everybody who wants to have access to that farmer's pond has access to that farmer's pond?

Maybe I should not suggest that. Maybe some Federal agency would hear that and say: It is water, it is pleasant, people ought to be able to enjoy it; everybody ought to be able to enjoy it just like the people who own the property and build the property and do their work.

My amendment would stop FERC from putting the commission's policy preferences above those of ratepayers and private landowners in licensing this dam.

My second amendment would simply redraw the boundaries of the Lake of the Ozarks to reflect the 662-foot contour as necessitated by changing water levels over the past 80 years. It would limit FERC's ability to issue an order to remove structures in what they now consider a project boundary until that boundary has been more finally settled. It would limit FERC's ability to reject applications as long as power generation is still preserved.

The purpose of FERC is to see that a power generating dam generates power. It is not to control everything that is behind that dam. That is not the job of FERC. In fact, let me leave those two amendments with a few stories of Missouri homeowners who shared their stories with me about how FERC and FERC's actions affected their lives.
This is a 30-year-old house that these homeowners have paid property taxes on for 30 years. In fact, you can see this large pine tree in front of this house. It was a seedling when they started paying property taxes, and that is a big tree. They paid property taxes the whole time. It is their first home. It is their only home. They have been informed that they are within the Bagnell Dam boundary, meaning they risk losing their house. In fact, it is one of 17 homes in this subdivision facing the same problem.

In another home, Fred and Barbara Lowtharp purchased this home 15 years ago. It was built 35 years ago. These are not new homes that somebody has just put on this property in the last couple of years and FERC has come in and said you made a mistake. This is a 35-year-old home that the current owners have lived in for 5 years. Barbara shared this with me on Facebook. She said:

We have been paying taxes and upkeep on our homes and new homes have been built around us within the last 2 years with permits and titles. These homes are not cabins. The majority of us live here year round.

This is according to the owner:

We have our money invested in these properties in good faith when we bought them, going through the right procedures and thinking you are a property owner for over 16 years, then being told your deed isn't worth the paper it is written on is something that you cannot understand how this can happen in the U.S.A.

This is the Facebook note continued: ``Really feel bullied by the FERC agency and Ameren.''

We owe it to the citizens involved to see that the Federal Government doesn't come in and just simply take their property. It is not fair. Imagine, you get a new job somewhere, this is your home, you cannot sell your home and buy a new home because FERC suddenly decided, after 16 years of paying taxes, that your land is not owned by you even though the county tax collectors thought it had been owned by you the whole time.

Let me discuss quickly the other two amendments that deal with flood control. The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers have both been impacted dramatically by flooding this year. In Holt County alone, there was an astonishing 165,000 acres under water, most of it for 3 and 4 months. In Birds Point in the boot heel of Missouri, another 130,000 additional acres of farmland is under water. In total, we had over 400,000 acres, 600 square miles--something about the size of the entire State of Rhode Island--under water during parts of this year. Vital transportation corridors have been closed, highways washed out, businesses shut down and people have been dealing with this now for months.

My first amendment, amendment No. 976, cuts the bureaucratic redtape if all you are doing is putting back something that was there before the flood. If you are rebuilding a levee, if you are putting back things that were there before the flood, to rebuild levees or locks or dams that were damaged by the flood, you should be able to do it. You should not have to go through all kinds of studies to decide if the levee that you are putting back as it was and where it was can be there again. This is the only chance we have to get these structures back in place before the 2012 flooding season starts.

Of course, in 2012 it would not have to be a flood of this size to create great problems if the levee is already gone. That is what that amendment would do. It gives the Corps the tools they need to restore flood protection to the 2011 levels, hopefully before the 2012 runoff season begins.

I want to talk about amendment No. 975, which restricts funding of the Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Recovery Program to $22 million. This still leaves a lot of money for that program, but it takes the other money that has been available for that program all year and makes it available to meet the critical flood control crisis.

We have already spent more than $616 million on that program. This is essentially a program that is one of the big projects where the government buys land from willing sellers who want to let it become more of a wetland or a wildlife reserve, something such as that. I am not saying that willing sellers should not be able to do that, but I am saying for right now $22 million--not something more like $72 million--is enough.

In fact, we have had citizens in some of these counties call the Corps to be told truthfully: No, we don't have sufficient funds to restore the flood protection you are eligible for, but we could buy your farm. Imagine if you are on the other end of that call and you have a family farm and you are calling to find out what you can do about the levee or what you can do to get flood protection back, and they say: We cannot do anything about the levee, but we could buy your farm. If you want to go back to the kitchen table and decide if you want to sell out, the taxpayers of America have plenty of money to buy your farm, but, no, we don't have money to restore the levee that was protecting your farm just a few days ago. That is not acceptable.

That is why Senator McCaskill and I are cosponsoring all four of these amendments. We recognize that these issues are critically important in our State. In fact, the last two amendments are critically important in the seven States that start in Montana and end in St. Louis, MO, that are impacted by flooding in all seven of those States this year.

I hope we are able to consider these amendments, and I hope my colleagues will join me in trying to do what is right for the people we were sent here to work for.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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