Roy Blunt: “I had a few minutes yesterday before the vote--the Congressional Review Act vote on this truly terrible EPA rule on…”

“I had a few minutes yesterday before the vote--the Congressional Review Act vote on this truly terrible EPA rule on water--to talk about the reasons EPA shouldn't do this, the long- term understanding of what ``navigable waters'' meant, the ability for EPA--if they wanted to change the law--to come and ask the Congress to change the law, but of course they don't want to do any of that. In fact, I had a small version of this map yesterday that shows the Farm Bureau projection--that I believe other projections agree with--of how much of our State is covered by this new jurisdiction by the Federal Government over essentially all the waters of the country. If you will notice, the only part of Missouri that would be covered under the so- called waters of the United States rule is just the part in red. Only 99.7 percent of the State would be under this new jurisdiction that the EPA would ask for. Surely, nobody believes the EPA could ever exercise this jurisdiction. And uniquely, as it relates to this rule--I think ``uniquely'' is the right word to say here--Federal agency after Federal agency opposed the EPA going forward with this rule. This is basically not just the EPA versus a few people who are concerned about it. It is the EPA versus anybody who has looked at it. According to the Small Business Administration--by the way, another agency of the Federal Government headed by someone else who is appointed by the President--they have a number of concerns.…”