Rob Bishop: “I actually don't have great pleasure in doing that because Mr. Brown is a vital member of our committee, does a great…”

“I actually don't have great pleasure in doing that because Mr. Brown is a vital member of our committee, does a great job, and defends his State brilliantly. I appreciate him doing that. But, once again, the process we are doing is adding another new taxpayer program that already has existing programs in effect, and is actually a stand-alone bill that has not received a hearing, a markup, or a CBO score, and adding that to this, because this is, once again, the only train in town and we are not taking time to do these things individually as we ought to. But when it comes to oyster research, which is extremely important, I recognize fully, as you see by the chart the total numbers in each of these years, starting in fiscal year 2014, are how much had been given to this particular program. In 2018, it was $617 million in funds from all of the different government agencies that actually participate. That includes Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, and EPA for watershed restoration. NOAA does have a Chesapeake Bay office. They provide research. They provide grants to both Maryland and Virginia. Last year, they also provided a grant to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to add these programs in there. What we are trying to say here is, it is already being done. Now, if this is a problem of not enough money going into there, as some of the other speakers have said, well, that is not an issue of authorization. The authorization authority exists.…”