Ron Kind: “I also want to thank the gentleman from California and the members on the Natural Resources Committee for their…”

“I also want to thank the gentleman from California and the members on the Natural Resources Committee for their bipartisan support of the Upper Mississippi River protection bill. As the gentlelady indicated, this has passed the previous Congresses. We're working with the Senate to finally get it to the President so it can be enacted. And to address a couple other concerns--and we've worked in a bipartisan fashion on this bill--there is concern about privacy protection and data collection. We feel that what has been worked out is a reasonable compromise to ensure that privacy but also, more importantly, that there is buy-in of private landowners which will be crucial for the implementation of this legislation. What we're trying to do is put the science in place in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The greatest threat that this great national treasure that we have running through the middle of America, comprising roughly 50 percent of the landmass of our Nation, is the amount of nutrients and sediments that flow into the river basin doing incalculable ecological damage. We've heard of the stories of the dead zone being created in the Gulf of Mexico. Well, 40 percent of the nutrients that are flowing south through the river and ending up deposited in the Gulf, contributing to the dead zone, emanates in the Upper Mississippi River Basin.”