Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my colleague that would prohibit the use of funds made available by this bill to ``develop, promulgate, evaluate, implement, provide oversight to, or backstop total maximum daily loads or watershed implementation plans for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.'' In essence, the amendment would prohibit the EPA from spending any funds on the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load initiative in order to monitor and oversee pollution reduction into the Bay. It would result in rolling back the progress we have made on pollution reduction and restoring the Chesapeake over the decade. It would negatively impact not only the physical landscape of the Bay, but also the economic import and success of the Bay. And it would unfairly place the financial burden of reducing pollution squarely on the Chesapeake Bay states.

The Chesapeake Bay is North America's largest and most productive estuary, with thousands of tributaries and 64,000 square miles of watershed that includes six states and the District of Columbia. The Bay supports more than 3,600 species of plants, fish and animals, is home to 29 species of waterfowl, and is a major resting ground along the Atlantic Migratory Bird Flyway. In addition, the Chesapeake is a commercial and recreational resource for the more than 15 million people who live in its basin, as well as visitors and tourists. Taking care of the Chesapeake Bay is vital to the environment and the economy, for recreation and natural resources, and for wildlife and the way of life in the Bay area. We use the Bay for recreation, agriculture, industry and navigation.

Just to give you a sense of the economic importance of the Bay, the 2008 Fisheries Economics of the U.S. report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicated that commercial seafood industry in Maryland and Virginia contributed $2 billion in sales, $1 billion in income, and more than 41,000 jobs to the local economy. The economic benefits of saltwater recreational fishing contributed $1.6 billion in sales which in turn contributed to more than $800 million of additional economic activity and roughly 13,000 jobs. The majority of this is from the Chesapeake Bay.

When we don't expend efforts to care for the Bay, that also has an economic impact. For example, in the area of commercial and recreational fisheries, the blue crab population continues to be threatened by poor water quality. When the broader impact on restaurants, crab processors, wholesalers, grocers, and watermen is added up, the decline of crabs in the Bay meant a cumulative loss to Maryland and Virginia of about $640 million between 1998 and 2006. Similarly, Oyster populations are threatened due to a combination of overharvesting, disease, and poor water quality. The decline of the Bay oyster over the last 30 years has meant a loss of more than $4 billion for Maryland and Virginia. In the area of public health, one study estimated the cost associated with exposure to polluted recreational marine waters to be $37 per gastrointestinal illness, $38 per ear ailment, and $27 per eye ailment due to lost wages and medical care. And with regard to clean water specifically, an EPA study indicated that clean water can increase the value of single family homes up to 4,000 feet from the water's edge by up to 25%. Perhaps most important, an EPA study of drinking water source protection efforts concluded that for every $1 spent on source water protection, an average of $27 is saved in water treatment costs.

Unfortunately, deterioration of the Bay and how to best address the problem has been a concern for more than two decades. When I served in the Virginia House of Delegates, I was part of a joint Virginia-Maryland legislative task force that first recommended the creation of a multi-state commission to address Bay issues. We filed a report in 1980 which recommended ``the need for improved coordination of Bay-wide management to meet the long-term needs of the people of both Maryland and Virginia.''

We have made great strides since then with the combined efforts of the federal government, state and local governments in the watershed, the Chesapeake Bay Commission, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, EPA, and all of their private partners over the last two decades. But we are far from done.

One of the most significant challenges facing the Bay today is pollution from wastewater treatment plants, development, transportation, stormwater runoff and runoff from agricultural lands. Prohibiting this funding would have a major impact on the water quality throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed states. It would significantly restrict efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff as well as monitoring and oversight of these efforts, all necessary to help protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay.

The amendment is opposed by the Nature Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, National Audubon Society, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ocean Conservancy, Sierra Club, Southern Environmental Law Center, Alaska Wilderness League, American Bird Conservancy, American Rivers, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Native Ecosystems, Center for Plant Conservation, Clean Water Action, Conservation Lands Foundation, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Earthworks, Endangered Species Coalition, Environment America, Environmental Working Group, Geos Institute, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, Marine Fish Conservation Network, Oceana, Oregon Wild, Population Action International, Southwest Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Wilderness Society, Trust for Public Land, Union of Concerned Scientists, World Wildlife Fund, and Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

For the foregoing reasons, I oppose the amendment and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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