Brian Mast: “I thank the gentleman for yielding; I thank the gentlewoman for her support; and I thank the committee for their work on…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding; I thank the gentlewoman for her support; and I thank the committee for their work on this piece of legislation. Now, HABHRCA is what we are talking about here. That is what a lot of people know it as. Since 1998 and the creation of HABHRCA, the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act, this interagency task force has done incredible work in different areas across the country, and they have done incredible work by working collaboratively across a number of different agencies. Whether you are talking about the Department of Commerce, Interior, HHS, CDC, EPA, and looping in there the Corps of Engineers, the work has been outstanding, and it is what is needed: collaborative efforts to go out there and research and find real results, mitigate the occurrences of these harmful algal blooms and hypoxia, and do this in waterways across our Nation. Now, H.R. 335, the South Florida Clean Coastal Waters Act of 2019, focuses that interagency capability on the Nation's most devastating example of harmful algal blooms and hypoxia to date: those that have occurred in the south Florida area. It truly is an environmental emergency that, unfortunately, many have witnessed on the news and seen in other places, and it has been a result of what has happened for almost a century: The U.S.…”