Nick Rahall: “I rise in support of S. 640, the conference agreement on the Water Resources Development Act of 1996. The House version…”

“I rise in support of S. 640, the conference agreement on the Water Resources Development Act of 1996. The House version of this bill, H.R. 3592, passed this body on July 29 of this year. The enactment of this legislation is overdue. Many places of the country, such as West Virginia, continue to be subjected to severe flooding. In fact, many places of my Congressional District have spent a good part of this last year under federal disaster declarations. With this said, while I am pleased that we are finally gaining the enactment of this legislation, I would have preferred to see many of the provisions of the version as passed by the House have remained unmodified by the Senate. In this respect, this conference agreement at the insistence of the Senate Conferees scaled back certain House provisions such as the one relating to flood control in the Greenbrier Basin of West Virginia that I sponsored. The fight we have had in gaining approval of this provision, which does not include the construction of a main-stem dam, illustrates that it would be virtually impossible for supporters of a dam on this river to be successful.”