Chuck Grassley: “I introduced this week, with 10 cosponsors, a bill to safeguard the property rights of our Nation's farmers. The bill…”

“I introduced this week, with 10 cosponsors, a bill to safeguard the property rights of our Nation's farmers. The bill will establish a moratorium on new wetland delineations, until Congress has time to enact a new farm bill and to consider the wetlands issue on agricultural land in conjunction with that bill. This corresponds with the policy set here by this body in 1985 when we passed the antisodbusting and antiswampbusting provisions that are on the books and are generally good pieces of legislation--now being abused, though, by faceless bureaucrats, who are trying to redetermine additional wetlands. Even though the prior determinations have fit into the farming patterns of individual farmers around the United States. As you know, Mr. President, no less than four Federal agencies claim jurisdiction over the regulation of wetlands. Just think of how impossible it is for the family farmer of America to try to understand what four different Federal agencies want him to do in regard to wetlands on his personal property and how that confounds him in making business decisions on the operation of his farm.”