Sam Farr: “I rise once again because every year we face this amendment and it does get knocked out in conference. But I rise with…”

“I rise once again because every year we face this amendment and it does get knocked out in conference. But I rise with concern that it keeps coming back, because I think it is based on a lot of misunderstanding, and it really can cause serious problems. For many years, Congress has been struggling with all these sorts of conflicts at the sea. Different Federal entities have different responsibilities--some for mineral management, some for fishing, some for coastal zone protection, Coast Guard for buoys. And when we were in the State legislature, State after State complained that there was a conflict of seas. Congress actually appointed a commission to review these, a bipartisan commission. The membership was appointed by President Bush. The commission came back with an oceans report indicating that we had to avoid these conflicts among agencies. What we would do is create a National Ocean Policy, which required all the Federal agencies to look at their responsibilities and to make sure that they were all coordinated so that they carry out the functions that they have been responsible for, but carry them out in a timely fashion. What this language in this bill says is you can't carry out these responsibilities under the National Ocean Policy. It is really stupid to knock it out, because what it will do is cost the people who want permits from the Federal Government a lot more time and money.…”