Michael Waltz: “I thank my delegation colleague, Congressman Mast, for drafting this important bill, the South Florida Clean Coastal…”

“I thank my delegation colleague, Congressman Mast, for drafting this important bill, the South Florida Clean Coastal Waters Act of 2019, to address the HABs problem, the harmful algal blooms, and improve water quality in Florida. I also thank Senator Rubio for introducing the Senate companion, and I give credit to my predecessor in Congress, now-Governor DeSantis, for prioritizing clean water at the State level. Red tides and green algae have plagued Florida in recent years. As we have discussed here today, it impacts Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades, Indian River Lagoon in my district, and both of Florida's coasts. Last Congress, the Interagency Task Force on HABs was reauthorized, which was a very important step. This bill ensures that the task force will produce an integrated assessment on the causes, consequences, and approaches to reduce HABs; identify the current gaps in research; and, very importantly, produce an action plan to deal with it. The focus of the task force is the Everglades, and the health of the Everglades impacts water quality across the State. The scope of the introduced version for H.R. 335 attempted to take this into account by including ``contiguous coastal near-shore water'' in the definition of eligible waterways. However, ``contiguous'' could be interpreted by the task force--this was my concern--in any number of ways, potentially excluding the northern reaches of the Indian River Lagoon.…”