Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would take away the EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act to retroactively deny permits to fill streams and wetlands in order to protect drinking water supplies, recreational waters, and fish and wildlife habitat. Now EPA has used this authority to veto permits after they were issued responsibly only three times in 40 years. All of these were extremely rare cases and these vetoes were necessary to protect critical water resources. In 1981, EPA revoked a permit for a solid waste landfill because it was leaking toxics into Biscayne Bay. In 1989, after objecting to a permit before it was issued, it overturned a permit to destroy 1,200 acres of flood plain wetlands in Georgia. And in 2010, which Mr. McKinley mentions, EPA denied a permit for one of the largest mountaintop removal mines in Appalachia that would have buried more than six miles of West Virginia streams and polluted downstream waters with mining waste, causing permanent damage to ecosystems and streams. The veto was not a surprise--and I stress that. EPA consistently expressed its concerns about water quality impacts of this mine beginning from 2002 to 2006, when the Corps issued the permit. Let me stress this was an extremely rare action taken by EPA. And the first time it was used, it used the Clean Water Act to overturn an approved mining permit.…”