Melvin Watt: “If this amendment is to have any meaningful effect, if this bill is to have any meaningful effect, and people who we…”

“If this amendment is to have any meaningful effect, if this bill is to have any meaningful effect, and people who we have not guaranteed if this bill passes that they will be compensated will be subjected to the whims of the appropriation process or nonappropriation. It is like we have got these naughty Federal Government agencies over there that are somehow separate and part from the Federal Government, itself, and the laws that the Congress passes who are out there acting as renegades and we are looking for somebody to blame, and trying to tell our constituents that somehow we are compensating them and protecting them against these naughty Federal Government agencies and hiding our head when really the agencies and the rules that they are applying and promulgating that result in these reductions in value are pursuant to the laws we passed here in this body and this is all a charade designed to make it appear that it is not us that is causing the problem by passing the Endangered Species Act or the Clean Water Act, but it is some Federal Government agency over there that is separate from us over here in Congress and they ought to go over there and get their judgment satisfied.”