The committee meets today to address the issue of water quality as it pertains to agriculture and forestry.  Our particular focus this morning is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed changes with regard to the Total Maximum Daily Load program and the subsequent changes in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program.

 Many in the agriculture and forestry community have concerns about how these proposed regulations will affect their businesses as well as their involvement in ongoing watershed restoration. Under the Clean Water Act, states have utilized voluntary programs and approaches to protect water quality.  We want to hear today about the effectiveness of this approach.  The States are concerned  that the proposed regulations represent a major significant shift away from historic voluntary and collaborative efforts toward watershed-based approaches.  These collaborative watershed strategies are the basis for voluntary, incentive-based solutions to control nonpoint source pollution.  State water quality agencies, the Defense Department’s Clean Water Act Services Steering Committee, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (representing more than 3 million U.S. businesses), along with many forestry and agriculture groups question EPA's proposed revisions.  They claim that the proposals would exceed EPA's authority, undermine states rights, impose exceptional costs and impede economic development.

 We also want to address today EPA’s  legal authority to regulate nonpoint source pollution.   The Congressional Research Service, in a legal memo prepared for the Agriculture Committee, has stated that it does not appear that EPA has legal authority to regulate nonpoint sources under the Clean Water Act.  EPA  appeared to concede this point at a House hearing last week.

  Meanwhile, the water quality challenges remain, and agriculture and forestry’s downstream neighbors will, with justification, expect progress.  The question then, is, how can we best work together to improve our nation’s water quality?  Is it best done by command-and-control, or by further commitment to incentive-based watershed approaches, which may not have had either the time or the investment to work.

 This committee has offered leadership on incentives for water quality efforts.  The 1996 farm bill was one of the most environmentally responsive and responsible farm bills in our Nation’s history.  It included the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) , that I authored along with Senator Leahy.  This is a highly successful program that is targeted by states to environmentally sensitive areas.  EQIP provides producers with the flexibility needed to address nonpoint source problems, which vary within a state, from state to state, and from watershed to watershed.  These problems can also vary from season to season and from year to year.  Nonpoint source pollution is very site specific, and EPA should incorporate maximum flexibility into any revision of the proposed regulations.

 It is my hope that this hearing, in addition to being a forum for the airing of concerns about these particular proposed rules, will also be the start of a dialogue on how we can make progress in an incentive-based system to address water quality challenges associated with agriculture and forestry.  This may involve more funding for our nonpoint source programs such as EQIP, the Wetland Reserve Program and the Conservation Reserve Program.  We should also examine how to increase the use of other market-based approaches.  It is through a combination of well-funded and innovative strategies that we will best address agriculture’s water quality challenges.