Providing for Consideration of HR 5078 Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act of 2014, and Providing for Consideration of H RES 644, Disapproval of the Administration's Failure to Notify Congress Before Releasing Individuals From Guantanamo Bay
Floor Speech
Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 715 and ask for its immediate consideration.
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Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
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Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which they may revise and extend their remarks.
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Madam Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 5078, the Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act of 2014, and makes in order three amendments, all from Democrats, for floor consideration.
It provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
In addition, this resolution provides for a closed rule for consideration of House Resolution 644, which condemns the administration's clear failure to follow the law requiring 30 days' advance congressional notification if any terrorist detainees at Guantanamo are to be released and condemning this administration's policy of selectively negotiating with terrorists to secure the release of an Army staff sergeant.
The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.
While these are separate issues, the two separate pieces of legislation covered under this rule, unfortunately, share one common theme: the practice of this administration to stretch the law.
As Bill Veeck used to say when he was running his baseball team, he doesn't break the rules, he just tests their elasticity. This administration has tested the elasticity from some of these rules and laws to the point where they have broken, and it is an overreach of the authority under the law.
Madam Speaker, let me talk for just a second about H.R. 5078 that deals with the Clean Water Act. This is a bipartisan bill. It was passed in the committee by a voice vote supported by many State and local governments and has largely been ignored by this administration as the administration seeks to go around Congress and attempt to revise administrative rules asserting a Federal stranglehold on private enterprise and job creation.
One may want to know why the U.S. economy is still in a Jimmy Carter-like malaise situation after 6 years with this administration. Just taking a look at the underlying issue of this bill finds an answer: the administration wants more rulemaking authority, more regulations, and a stronger Federal stranglehold on what you and I can and can't do, what business owners can and can't do, and what farmers can or can't do with their own property.
Clearly, when the Clean Water Act was passed, it specified that the primary responsibility for water issues were to lay with the States. It is very clear when they came up with the concept of navigable waters of the United States, the Federal Government had a jurisdictional interest in interstate water regulations, but not intrastate.
Twice the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled against the agencies that have been managing the Clean Water Act and saying simply that they overstretched their authority, they stretched their limits, and they stretched what is the power given to them under this particular act.
Now, unfortunately, we see an administration that is trying to move around that. Two Congresses--the 110th and the 111th--had legislation that was introduced to try and change these provisions of the Clean Water Act. Both times they were met with strong bipartisan opposition which didn't go anywhere.
Now, the administration, with much of their work done in closed-door session without local input, are trying to draft a proposed administrative rule that takes the Supreme Court decisions--it misconstrues their decisions and manipulates their decisions, so that, in effect, it turns the cases that we are attempting to put limitations on what the Clean Water Act authorized the government to do and use that as a justification for the Agency to broaden its jurisdiction and increase the controls it has over waters of the United States and individuals. In so doing, it actually harms people.
Overregulation seems to be one of this administration's hallmark. This bill, in a bipartisan manner, will address the proper way to go about modifying the Clean Water Act and its relation to Federal power, such that it will not further stifle jobs, economic growth, or hurt people, while it still protects the environment.
The rule before us is still a good bill. It deals with two vitally important pieces of legislation. I urge their adoption, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my friend from Florida that significant issues need to be addressed on this floor. Nothing is more significant than the future of our water rights, which does impact the economy, especially for areas of interest where that is significant, like agriculture. Because of that, I am glad to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).
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Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
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Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments that were made by the gentleman from Florida just recently, except that I would take exception to the idea that anything that we should bring to this floor has to be generated and has to be passed by the Senate.
I reject the idea that we have to get permission from that body to discuss things here on the floor, and if they allow it to go forward, then, and only then, would we bring something to the floor, because this rule will bring a significant piece of legislation that has to be addressed dealing with a potential rule and regulation that deals with the waters of the United States that could have enormous consequences--enormous consequences not only for the economy of this country, but also for individuals who use the water and live with that water.
We have the potential of actually doing something positive by stopping a bad rule from going into effect by changing its direction and saying that only Congress should be the one that would change those concepts. Unfortunately, if we don't do that, we end up hurting people. And that is why I want this rule to go forward and I want the underlying bill to go forward on water, because we have to stop hurting people.
Let me give you a story of an old farmer in northern Utah I met when I was first elected. He was a very kindly gentleman because, in his entire ordeal with the Federal Government, I never heard him say an unkind word. I, on the other hand, will spend quite a few years in purgatory about what I was saying about this situation not only verbally but inside my head.
This gentleman had a problem because he was renting a farm that had been a family farm since the 1800s. He was a sugar beet farmer, which, parenthetically, I have to note for the record, is a root crop that cannot be grown in a wetlands.
Nonetheless, his farm was watered by irrigation that came from a valid right that came from a creek that was diverted by a ditch. Around 1905, the creek was diverted to a higher level on the farm so that it would run there, and the old waterbed became vacant. It became part of his sugar beet farm. The water then went through a ditch that irrigated that particular area.
Well, as the farmer for over 80 years, his family was growing sugar beets on this creekbed. As the gentleman's siblings left the farm and his kids didn't want to take it over, this land became his inheritance that would provide for his retirement and an inheritance for his kids to pass on.
It came to the point where it was rezoned by the local community for commercial property, and the company gave him a very decent offer to try and buy his old farm. This was back in 1993. But what it would require is to actually fill up the old riverbed and run a pipe underneath the property so the water would go from the original point over to the neighbors.
Everything was great until the Army Corps of Engineers came by and one Army regulator saw them irrigating the land, which was now used to grow hay and not sugar beets, and declared that, since water was now pooled in this land, it was a wetland. His recognition was that it was a wetland. Now, the fact that no water reached that land if the ditch was shut off didn't stop him from saying: This now is a wetland, and I get to regulate it under the Clean Water Act as waters of the United States.
So the soil and conservation service came in and conducted tests. They drilled 22 holes 8 feet or longer to find out that under the topsoil is a level of clay, so no water would ever percolate up onto this land. The only way you got water there is if you opened the ditch to let water come back. Nonetheless, the Army Corps regulator still said: I declare this to be a wetland, and I have jurisdiction over it under the Clean Water Act regulations that we have.
The guy tried to prove his point by putting in a pipe that shows that if you actually ran the water past this area, nothing actually pooled on this land, to which he was threatened with jail time if he did not take the pipe that he owned off the land that he owned from the water right that he owned, actually take that away.
We said: Look, no water actually appears there normally. You go out there and you can break a shovel trying to dig up this wetland. How long will it take before you recognize the fact that this is not a generating wetland?
The regulator said: Well, you know, we are in a drought cycle. So maybe in 7 to 15 years, if no water appears on that land, we will actually not declare this a wetland and allow the owner of the land to actually sell his property for his retirement and his inheritance.
My predecessor started this case. I met the man as I was early elected. Finally, after 10 years of haggling with the regulators of the United States over what is or is not waters of the United States, he simply got tired of doing it. He sold his land at one-quarter of the value that a neighboring piece of property got for the same size but had not been declared as wetlands by a single regulator in the United States.
Now, why is this bill so significant? Because this bill, if not put in some kind of parameters and checks, allows the Federal Government to hurt people. It gives them the power and authority to hurt people. Indeed, the direction that this proposed rule is going would not limit the control the agencies have over people's lives. It would significantly expand it. That is why it is so significant.
It is important for Congress to simply say: No, we will no longer make rules in this country simply by agencies deciding to expand their own control where they have a terrible track record and they actually hurt people. We will say: If you are going to expand it, it has got to be done by Congress--specifically by Congress--and not by rulemaking authority of some agency of the Federal Government.
That is the significance of this piece of legislation. That is why this legislation has to come to the floor. That is why we are not wasting time.
This is not a message issue. This is something where people are being harmed by the agencies of the Federal Government, and Congress must exert its rightful role in trying to rein in these agencies and trying to write the laws so these agencies will not simply abuse people because they have the power to abuse people.
I am sorry, Madam Speaker, but I consider that to be significant. I consider that to be our responsibility. If the Senate doesn't want to take up that responsibility, if the Senate wants to still abuse people, then that can be their prerogative, but it should not limit what we do here in the House in speaking out for our constituents.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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I appreciate my friend from Virginia's effort to try and save my mortal soul. You failed.
Whether it is one person or multiple people being abused, abuse is wrong and, unfortunately, we have two Supreme Court decisions that have said the same thing: the agencies abuse their authority. It is time for Congress to step in.
Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).
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I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp) to talk about this significant issue.
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I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) because if anyone can be considered an expert on water issues in the United States, it is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations, as well as a former member of the Natural Resources Committee.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).
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The only one to hear from now is I.
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Madam Speaker, in closing, historically, the wise use of water has made the desert bloom, but much of my time and some of the most egregious problems that I face deal with the overreach of executive agencies when it comes to water. To claim that their tactics are arbitrary and capricious would be overly generous.
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The bottom line is the Supreme Court has twice said that the executive branch agencies have overreached their authority. Twice there was legislation to try to expand that authority, which failed miserably, and now what the Supreme Court said they could not do and what Congress would not grant them to do, the agencies are trying to accomplish by creating a rule to give them powers that they ought not to have.
That--I am sorry, Madam Speaker--is simply wrong. The reason it is wrong is that it hurts people. People trying to live their lives find themselves frustrated by executive agency overreach.
That is why Congress must indeed pass not only this resolution and rule, but also the underlying bill, and it must move forward to make sure that Congress controls these issues in the future, not an executive branch agency. I have to reiterate that this rule is fair, and the underlying legislation is appropriate.
With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
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