On the recordFebruary 5, 2014
I thank the gentleman very much, and I want to follow up on exactly your same story. I hear the same from my farmers in Missouri. And this picture on this poster, I hope everyone can see, because I want to show what Representative Holding was just talking about. The Clean Water Act gave the EPA authority to regulate navigable waters, and those are the pictures here. They would be something that you would consider navigable waters, and they worked with the Corps of Engineers to develop regulations. The pictures on the right are what I consider nonnavigable, and I think most people with common sense would. They are farm ponds, puddles, and ditches. This is what the EPA is trying to expand its reach to regulating. As Representative Holding said, this is going to impact every farmer and every property owner, and it is a violation of property rights. The government should not have any control or say over how people manage their ponds, or if there is a puddle in the field, they shouldn't have to ask permission to be able to plant a crop there. And yet that is what you have, one of the things that EPA is doing. Thank you for bringing that up. And I wanted everybody to see how ridiculous this is and what an overreach of government it is. Thank you for showing that picture. Now, I turn to Andy Barr from Kentucky. He knows a little bit about coal and some of the other impacts of the EPA. Please share your thoughts on the topic.
