On the recordMay 24, 2016
I strongly oppose this amendment. We have debated this issue for many years now. The fact is, the gentleman is right in one regard in that the Clean Water Act, in trying to define what waters of the United States by navigable waters, is hard. Navigable to what? Consequently, every organization that I know of supports a new rule that brings certainty and clarity to it. That is what the Supreme Court said on two different occasions: that the Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency had gone too far, and that Federal jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act was not as broad as they had claimed, and that we needed certainty and clarity in this rule. So the EPA took that and said: okay, I know what will give certainty; we will just regulate everything. That is pretty much what they have done with this rule. Everybody who proposes this as a really good deal is under the assumption that the waters were not regulated before if they didn't fall under the Clean Water Act. The reality is that the EPA didn't regulate them, but the States regulated them, and the States did a darn good job of it in most cases. We do need some clarity. But as cases have said, as the Supreme Court has said, the EPA has gone too far. Deciding how water should be used is the responsibility of State and local officials who are more familiar with the people and the local issues.…
