Bruce F. Vento: “Mr. Hayes' bill on wetlands alone, and a bill that I might say had a very restrictive definition of wetlands, an…”

“Mr. Hayes' bill on wetlands alone, and a bill that I might say had a very restrictive definition of wetlands, an estimate was made. An estimate was made on that particular bill with regard to what would the cost of the implementation of the bill be with regard to his specific provisions. The provisions of the measure were more limited than in the legislation before us. In the CBO's estimate, excluding Alaska, excluding Hawaii, they estimated that the cost would be $10 billion to $15 billion in terms of cost, just for the provisions that deal with the wetland delineation process in H.R. 1330 of the 102d Congress. As I said, I believe the restrictions that he had in the 1992 bill were much more limited. In fact, they calculated there were only about 100 million acres of wetlands, but the estimate dealt with touched on 9 million acres. It did not deal with Alaska, the wetlands in Alaska. That was the cost, that is what we were talking about, $10 to $15 billion.”