Tim Huelskamp: “I appreciate the time from my colleague from Utah, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I was at the…”

“I appreciate the time from my colleague from Utah, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I was at the Kansas State Fair this past weekend, and the number one issue at the fair was this particular rule coming out of the EPA. I stopped by the booth of the Kansas Farm Bureau, I heard it as I walked through the streets of the state fair: ``Ditch the rule.'' And that is what we are trying to do here, to make certain that EPA regulators can't go in the backyards, the farm ponds, the road ditches, every place there might be a drop of water. This is a radical redefinition from the EPA, unelected, of course, trying to redefine the current language of the Clean Water Act. It is so radical, Madam Speaker, that a Congress controlled by the other side of the aisle even refused to authorize these changes, so the EPA is trying to do an end run, as they have done on numerous other accounts, trying, again, to rewrite clear law in reference to navigable waters. In western Kansas, where I farm, and where I have most of my constituents, they are worried. What kind of place have we come to in this country in which average ordinary Americans, whom we work for, whom the EPA claims to work for, are worried about those regulators? The State of Kansas will continue to regulate these issues. The EPA does not need additional authority. They have stepped well beyond the bounds of the authority we have given them as a Congress.…”