Ed Markey — Markey Discusses Clean Water Rule with Army Corps

Thank You mr. chairman very much and thank you assistant secretary Darcy for being here today as the committee adds to the already very extensive consultation and reviews at the Army Corps and the Environmental Protection Agency have undertaken in crafting the recently finalized clean water rule but before I get to the Clean Water Act I wanted to thank you and the Army Corps for your work on the Boston Harbor dredging that project will be critical as the port of Boston continues its 385 year history in the 21st century thank you I also appreciate the core work on the muddy river project I think you know there are some ongoing discussions about how we can ensure that the project will provide flooding protection over the long term especially factoring in climate change and I'd like to have an opportunity to speak with you more about those concerns at a later time the drama of rivers in the United States catching on fire compelled the enactment of the Clean Water Act which gave the government broad authority to limit water pollution as the 1972 conference report and two Supreme Court rulings have made clear the EPA and the Army Corps have the authority to address pollution beyond traditional navigable waters the Clean Water Act is one of America's great successes it has supported improvement in our economy and ecosystems and it continues to work rivers don't catch fire anymore and people can even swim in the child's river now which was impossible for most of my life but given litigation in the last decade the EPA and the Army Corps needed to update their implementation of the Clean Water Act which leads to a new rule that we are discussing today now some say that the new clean water rule does not go far enough while others like the National Farmers Union prefer this rule over its previous iterations so I want to ask you secretary Darcy a few questions about the development of this rule first the memos being discussed today reveal conflicting opinions within the core on the policy decisions made in the rule isn't it true that internal discussions are an important part of the rulemaking process yes senator I assume many people in the Army Corps worked on this rule shouldn't we expect that some would feel that the rule should be made more stringent yes senator do the memos reflect the official opinion of the army no were the issues raised by the memos covered in the final rule some of the issues were addressed and changed as a result of that yes critics of the rule have voiced concern over the agency's provision of a legal rationale for the rule but isn't it true that the rule while proposed included an entire appendix entitled legal analysis which spoke to those concerns that's correct and similarly isn't it true that the first section of the final rules technical support document entitled statute regulations and case law that the legal issues also spoke to those concerns over the span of 86 pages yes so I think it's pretty clear that there was a very thorough consultation process that there was a very thoughtful set of discussions that took place that there was in fact a supporting set of documents to back up the basis for the decisions which were made as the concerns had been raised and so I think that the Army Corps did a good job it's a tough job ah but it's one where it seems to me that you balanced the interest that were at stake and tried to come down with good judgments and I think you did it and I think you also did it legally and you did it with the backup analysis which is required under the law and so I just wanted to compliment you on your very good work and I thank you mr.

chairman for having this hearing