Dawn Zimmer: “Surely I would agree that we, as Members of Congress, have the responsibility to write the laws, but we also have a…”

“Surely I would agree that we, as Members of Congress, have the responsibility to write the laws, but we also have a responsibility to take into account the facts of nature that scientists can describe for us. In that regard, there is an anecdote that may shed some light on this issue. As we know, Mr. Chairman, from our high school geometry classes, the ratio between the diameter of a circle and the circumference of a circle is known as pi, and is equal to roughly 3.14159. It is a long decimal number that is hard to remember, so in 1897 the legislature of the State of Indiana decided that they would make life easier for high school students by passing a law that the value of pi would be 3.0 exactly. Mr. Chairman, the legislators of the State of Indiana had it wrong, because regardless of what any legislature or Congress says the value of pi is, it will remain and will always be 3.14159. There is a parallel here to the legislative definition of wetlands.”