The Honorable Donna F. Edwards
Closing Statement in Opposition to H.R. 935, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act
July 30, 2014
Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into the Record a letter from 144 environmental organizations, community-based organizations around the country that oppose H. Res. 935.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Again, I think it is important for us to deal in facts and not in mythology. And a couple of the facts are these:
In 2008, States reported to the EPA – that is, State reporting agencies – that 16,819 miles of rivers and streams, 1,766 square miles of bays and estuaries, and 260,342 acres of lakes are impaired or threatened by pesticides. So it is simply not the fact, Mr. Speaker, that there is no identified pesticide contamination in our water bodies. It is simply not true.
I just want to note also for the record, Mr. Speaker, that, again, there has been no evidence at all that, again, despite the repeated request of the EPA and State-run permit programs, that there are specific examples where the application of the Clean Water Act requirements have prevented a pesticide applicator from performing their services. So if there was a problem and a burden, then identify it. And there simply has been no identification of such a problem.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to review our recent history. Just on Monday of this past week, the House of Representatives actually defeated the bill that we are considering tonight, H.R. 935, under suspension of the rules. So having gone through that defeat, tonight we have debated the merits again of that same piece of legislation under a rule that does not allow any amendments to improve the bill to be offered, debated, or voted on. Tomorrow, the House will, once again, vote on passage of H.R. 935, the bill that failed under a suspension of the rules on Monday.
This legislation will undermine one of our Nation’s most successful environmental laws, the Clean Water Act, in limiting the potential contamination of our Nation’s waters by pesticides.
Contrary to some of the rhetoric – some of which we have heard tonight, Mr. Speaker – the Environmental Protection Agency has successfully drafted and implemented a new pesticide general permit for the last 2 1/2 years.
That regulation has several commonsense precautionary measures that limit contamination of local waters by pesticides – we have heard from the States even since 2008 that pesticide contamination in thousands of miles of streams, rivers, and estuaries are in fact contaminated by pesticide – while it would allow pesticide applicators to meet their vital public health, agricultural, and forestry-related activities in a cost-effective manner.
Now, last Congress, Mr. Speaker, the House narrowly approved a similar bill, H.R. 872, under suspension of the rules by a vote of 292-130, under the guise of regulatory uncertainty under a yet-unseen Clean Water Act permit program.
However, since that time, the EPA has issued a reasonable and protective Clean Water Act permit program that preserves vital farming, forestry, and mosquito control activities at the same time as protecting our Nation’s waters. So a year passed, and we have implemented a program that is underway now.
Mr. Speaker, the Clean Water Act is a key to those of us who value clean drinking water and fishable, swimmable waters or who represent States that depend on tourism, like my home State of Maryland, since we have the fourth longest coastline in the continental United States, the Chesapeake Bay – which is the largest estuary in the United States – and several of its tributaries, including the Anacostia, Patuxent, Potomac, and Severn Rivers that flow through the Fourth Congressional District.
The shoreline of the Chesapeake and its tidal tributaries stretch for over 2,000 miles, and thousands of streams, rivers, and acres of wetlands provide the freshwater that flows into the bay.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act, over the past 40-plus years, billions of pounds of pollution have been kept out of our rivers, and the number of waters that meet clean water goals nationwide has doubled, with direct benefits for drinking water, public health, recreation and wildlife.
The act represents a huge step forward by requiring States to set clean water standards to protect uses such as swimming, fishing, and drinking and for the regulation of pollution discharges.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot possibly want to return to a laissez-faire policy that provided no accountability to who was using what pesticides, where they were using those pesticides, and in what amounts and resulted in thousands of miles of streams and lakes being contaminated by pesticides.
I would urge my colleagues to take the commonsense approach that the EPA has taken and to, on both sides of the aisle, vote “no” on H.R. 935 and to once again vote down legislation that is looking to solve a problem, Mr. Speaker, that simply does not exist.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
