Opening Statements

Remarks as prepared for delivery:

Today we will once again consider the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. As many of you will remember, this Committee met four years ago to mark up this very same bill text. That bill, H.R. 872, was reported out of our committee by voice vote and passed the House floor on suspension with a vote of 292-130. The same bill passed the House in the last Congress as H.R. 935 on a vote of 267-161.

This language was likewise included in the 2012 Farm Bill reported out of this committee, as well as in the 2013 Farm Bill the House sent to Conference.  It was included in the Committee reported text of the FY 2012 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. Unfortunately, due to the opposition from a couple of our friends in the Senate, we have been unable to get this bill to the President’s desk for what we continue to believe would be his guaranteed signature. 

As many of you recall, this bill language was drafted at our request by the EPA Office of General Counsel.   The problem we asked EPA to help resolve stems from an uninformed court decision in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. This decision invalidated a 2006 EPA regulation exempting pesticide applications that are in compliance with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act from having to also comply with a costly and duplicative permitting process under the Clean Water Act.

The attempt by those pressing this litigation to have federally registered public health, aquatic and agricultural pesticides regulated through the Clean Water Act permitting process is unnecessary, costly and ultimately undermines public health. It amounts to a duplication of regulatory compliance costs for a variety of public agencies, adds to their legal jeopardy, and threatens pesticide applicators, including mosquito control districts with fines for non-compliance that are statutorily set at $37,500 per day per violation.

Across the country, several mosquito control districts that are already faced with tight budgets and the legal jeopardy this mandate assumes have warned of operational disruptions of varying degrees due to these costs.  Doing so will expose large portions of the population to mosquitoes potentially carrying a number of dangerous exotic diseases such as West Nile virus. Hospitalization and rehabilitation costs ranging from tens of thousands into the millions of dollars, lost productivity, decrease in tourism and significantly negative impacts on horse and livestock production are but a few of the costs that, while difficult to quantify, will further strain scarce public health resources.

This unnecessary mandate applies not only to local and state interests but also to federal agencies’ lands located in states directly regulated by the EPA.  For example, federal agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers authorize use of some of their lands for many purposes including recreation and agriculture.  These uses often require pesticide applications to prevent mosquito-transmitted diseases and for other purposes. 

Therefore, though the local mosquito control district may be the entity actually applying the pesticide, the Army Corps District is required to obtain the permit and sign-off on related reports, thereby unnecessarily driving up costs to the federal government.  Further, the experience has shown that the Corps is reluctant to assume permit responsibility for activities that it is not actually performing. 

As the administration continues to press forward with its unprecedented expansion of jurisdictional waters under the proposed Waters of the United States rule, passage of this legislation is even more important. Under that proposal, periodic puddles in farm fields, ditches and other non-navigable waters would be added to those considered jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act, which requires permits in order to apply registered pesticides in or near those features. This is a regulatory burden that Congress never intended and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, once again.