Liz Saville Roberts: “It is a partnership effort to prevent close encounters of the regulatory kind. This is a good bill. For 15 years we have…”

“It is a partnership effort to prevent close encounters of the regulatory kind. This is a good bill. For 15 years we have tried to get a bill like this making a partnership with industry, agriculture, environmentalists. Fifteen years we have been spinning our wheels. I want to talk about wetlands. It is true. We have now a well established procedure that says the land must be flooded if it is going to be a wetland. It must support water loving plants, and it must have hydric soils. The land must show clear evidence of all three characteristics. Too long, too long we have been subjected to regulatory nightmares where a low spot in some farmer's field was declared a wetland in an area where no self-respecting duck would ever land. Let us end this business. Let us pass this bill. It is a good partnership. I commend the chairman. I commend his leadership. No member of the Committee on Agriculture on either side should vote against this bill. It is a very good reform bill.”