i call this hearing of the house small business committee to order in our nation's recovery effort green policies have been top priority and with good reason already investments in sectors  makes sense because small firms like all other businesses rely on natural resources to run their operations of those critical resources water is one of the most important our nation's waterways play is vital role in all of commerce and one form or another water for everything from paving roads to raising livestock in recent years however the process for regulating our waterways has become complex requests falls somewhere between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand on average a business will wait anywhere from two to three years to secure an individual license kind of delays are particularly challenging today as small contractors shovel ready stimulus projects this or that have to begin right away not two or three years down the road nearly four decades ago the clean water act cemented america's commitment to conservation we want to continue that legacy today but in order to do so we will need to be sure small firms understand their options and know wh i we have to take care of that land so trust me when i say that farmers are the very best stewards of the land that they farm it's absolutely in their best interest however i grow increasingly frustrated with the government dictate to you very much madam chairwoman and members of the committee thank you so much for having this hearing today and giving us an opportunity to express our views on this very important issue i'm very pleased to have the opportunity to testify before this committee with my good friend and ranking member sam graves we've been friends a long time and i have great respect for sam my name is charlie cruz i'm a fourth generation farmer from dexter missouri in the boot heel of the state of missouri i serve as president of missouri farm bureau and i'm very pleased to offer this testimony on behalf of the american farm bureau federation and farmers and ranchers nationwide we appreciate the invitation to comment on the regulatory implications and associated costs to small business of deleting the term navigable from the clean water act the cases i'm going to tell you about are real and they show that small words do indeed make a big difference sometimes if we were to take the word navigable out of the clean water act and let the corps of engineers and e p a regulate all interstate and tr state waters many more farmers and ranchers will be caught in regulatory quicksand that can mean years of delay and over a million dollars in costs a study backs up what farmers and ranchers have been telling all of us it takes two to four years to prepare and obtain a four hundred four permit the average cost can range from over two hundred seventy thousand dollars and that figure doesn't include the cost of mitigation design changes and the cost of carrying capital down to several thousand dollars in either case a very large sum of money for someone trying to operate a small business the first example is about a farmer who wanted to transition his pasture land to great production and was told that he had to obtain a four hundred four permit it took two years for the agencies to issue the permit the farmer spent over six thousand dollars in consulting fees over three thousand dollars in permit and mapping fees and over one hundred thirty five thousand dollars to mitigate ten acres that were arguably not wetlands the second example is about a small farmer who wanted to improve the existing drainage eleven acres of his land he first went to u s d a who told him they didn't consider his land a wet then went to the state agency that had jurisdiction over this issue in his state the state agency told him the same thing they did not consider his land a wetland therefore he would not need to have a permit but the corps of engineers did tell him that he had to have a permit they told him it needed both a permit and seventeen point seven acres of mitigation the cost of compliance seventy seven thousand dollars more than the property was worth and the farmer just simply couldn't afford to comply so he left his land as it was the third example is about private ponds and lakes i daresay that practically every if not every member of congress has privately owned lakes and privately owned ponds in their state in my state of missouri we have a large number of we have over three hundred thousand ponds privately owned in the state of missouri if the word navigable were to be taken out of the clean water act the federal government would then have jurisdiction over every privately owned pond and every privately owned lake not only in the state of missouri but in every state in the nation that is something that makes no sense to us in any way lastly i want to highlight the regulatory treatment of prior converted cropland the leading the term navigable opens the door for the agencies to regulate the use value of over fifty five million acres of cropland of value conservatively estimated to be one hundred ten billion dollars agricultural are non agricultural changing this important regulatory exemption will devastate value the assets of hundreds of thousands of land owners currently making plans to use their the value of this land which if we remove the word navigable from the clean water act is something that we think would be a very devastating process so we would urge you to keep the word navigable in the clean water act as it's utilities or this is an at large position that oversees water and wastewater infrastructure and management in my community as an elected official and a public water quality is very important in my position i'm challenged to make decisions about how to best protect water quality in the health and welfare of our citizens and because our resources are limited i must also make sure the project done in a timely and cost effective manner that is why i am concerned about jurisdiction in the interest of clarity the clean water restoration act would make everything federal as a result any activity any wet area in the united states would be subject to federal regulation we think this goes too far so to state and local governments that have a long assumed primary responsibility for land and water the proposal would give the corps any and limited regulatory authority over all waters period including groundwater this is of serious concern to us as underground contractors under this expansion contractors especially underground contractors like myself would continually face the threat of legal liability for seen and unpreventable encounters with groundwater every trenching operation perhaps every hole in america would require a permit to avoid risk of violation finally i would like to add a thought on the so called compromise version of the proposal that the environment and public works committee approved and it still results in the same outcome a g c opposes fundamentally expanding the scope of chairwoman thank you very much for this opportunity to introduce a fellow rancher from my great state of arizona my mother's family were ranchers and we grew up knowing that healthy land makes healthy cattle which makes healthy families so i'm very pleased to introduce mr jim chilton a fifth generation rancher in arizona he is here to testify on behalf of the arizona cattle growers the public land council in the national cattlemen's beef association along with his brother and family mr chilton ranch is on fifty thousand acres near arab aka arizona like many ranches in arizona the family ranch includes private property property state school trust land and interested in hearing your thoughts today and thank you madam chairwoman for including ranters as a critical critical part of our small business committee good afternoon madam chairman and ranking member and members of the committee and thank you congresswoman  water continues to be a priority for the livestock producers as cattlemen we have a commitment to being good stewards of the land and that job we take very seriously the clean water restoration act will negatively impact small business owners like me by limiting my ability to improve my ranching operations the legislation vastly expanded the corps of engineers and the environmental protection agency's regulatory jurisdiction and will result in limitless control over all water in the nation and the dramatic expansion of bureaucracy ultimately bureaucrats would control not only water but citizens lives and land use and all water chairwoman mentioned that there are fifteen to twenty thousand existing for a four permit in the hopper to be acted upon why add tens of indicated it takes over seven hundred eighty eight and two hundred seventy one thousand five hundred ninety six dollars to comply with the current process and the average applicant for a nationwide corps of engineers permit currently spends one spends three hundred thirteen days the average cost of twenty eight thousand nine hundred fifteen dollars as mr kraus pointed out this is not counting the substantial cost for changes and mitigation i'm quoting the supreme court in the decision prior to the supreme court decision i applied for for four pyramid to construct a normal ranch road across a dry wash i had to hire tourney environmental consultants which cost about forty thousand dollars of the cost in terms of civil penalties and i decided to drop and abandon the project we later abandoned another needed improvement that would require covert to dry washes on existing roads have been there for fifty years i ask how can the dry washes impact a navigable stream since the nearest navigable stream is the colorado river about two hundred seventy five miles away committee testify and i apologize for coming in with my coat but i came over from meeting in the senate and i was perspiring so bad that i thought if i put my coat on i might appreciate you not requiring that i put it back  milk supply thirty billion pounds of mail is a fifty billion dollars business just in the northeast of my mention of coming or in the senate side we were just in a meeting over there on and i think this is relevant to this legislation that the committee is having this hearing on today dairy industry is in the worst crisis it has faced in years and years and years and we were at the meeting where having a senate fact congressman thompson was at this meeting w construction excavation site work and knowledge also the oldest and largest trade association working solely for the utility construction industry he's also president of armidale underground as we now which is based in salem oregon armad contract area was a point in two thousand and one by governor john kitzhaber as the contracting delegate to the board of directors for the oregon utility notification center his commitment to educating a promoting the benefits of technology on a national level i think first of all with the comments made by the other panel members about the concerns with regard to your question i think one of the safeguards that we have today when it comes to agriculture so if you were to change that from the way it is treated now it could drastically reduce the value of one's land and those are some of the real concerns we have that some of the back to a comment you made during your opening comments about farmers and ranchers striving to be good stewards of the land and i think that without a doubt is something that we all strive to do take care of the land that the clean water act then we're talking about every pond every lake every stream every puddle a femoral areas which are areas where after a rain water may stand temporarily and then go away and so you might have an area where water might stand after rain for a few days a year and be dry the majority of days of the year but that would be under the jurisdiction of the of the federal government and you know i can see a scenario which we see all the time where an attorney shows up and representing a client and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars later and much time and agony you could well almost be without a farm or ranch after trying to defend yourself because of a third party lost and i think the fear we all have is install water lines sanitary sewer lines and don't expect many of the members of congress know this unless you're in the business for most people but there is typically groundwater everywhere and in safe and keep the projects moving forward we have to pump the water out of that excavation and then put in a suitable backfilling in place the pipes in there under this rule that ground water whether i know it's there or not i have to get a four for permit so i could be going along with the start of my project and the ground is perfectly dry and i come up to  an area where there is ground water coming in because there is no there's no amount of just says all waters and if i have to start pumping it then i have to shut down for permit and i don't know how far that ground water's going to go for it to go for the entire length of the project or could only may go for one hundred feet or so so it's a very this opens up a huge huge issue as specially in our market for this for this issue and i think it's and quite often they were working under the existing clean water act and have all the permits and people come out and they're opposed to fixing the existing structure of these  for just trying to stop urban growth anything that not my backyard type of things and they're going to say now we have a vehicle that we can use we're going to say this is a wetland we can use that  opinion do you think our current practice sufficiently protects our nation's water interests or is there a role for expanded if it stops short of removing navigable waters from the definition if there's a problem identify the problem and work with the landowner about the problem come to a  agreement for what might be done in a specific spot in a particular state and then with that help perhaps fund money to solve that particular problem in contrast to throwing a net across the whole of the united states and regulate as contemplated by the expansion of the  river which shares a border with mexico so i want to make sure that the water that we're pumping out of that river is clean as possible and not only reduces the costs of purifying the water for the citizens but also just the courts have taken some liberties as we know and they've been mentioned here today and expanding that i believe in just an opinion but i think if we go back to seventy two was n water and so it is a concern to see some of the some of the things that have occurred but i think there is no logic in removing the word navigable and giving the federal government jurisdiction over every drop of water theoretically that that exists including little puddles that develop after rain we all know you all hear all kinds of horror stories about the overreach of the corps in the  certainly hear them and and live them every day and i agree with mr pedley i think it's very important for you all to make sure that your intent  very present in rulemaking and you know i know that sometimes you all get frustrated by the overreach of of the government bureaucracy and going beyond what your intent is but this is a this is a clear case where we really need to have a clear state farm for president you talked a little bit about some instances that you're aware of that have applied for a four four permit in the past before we get to that i guess i want to make it clear who is finally when they found out that the corps was going to make him mitigate this with eleven acres with seventeen point seven acres and all the expanse that it was going to be incurred he finally just threw up his hands and said i can't do it it's just it's to cost me more than the land is worth the cost of a couple hundred thousand dollars to two years of his time and the end result was nothing to basically he could move forward on his project and i think in this case he didn't spend it can cost well over two hundred thousand dollars but i think he stopped the process before he spent that amount of money because he just when the court told him he had to have a permit he had to mitigate it he just said i can't justify the expense ok thank you very much mr schellenberg on behalf the national utility contractors association you also detailed some of the problems with the permitting that would be required i guess my question to you is given the additional permitting that would be required see instances where your utility contractors would rather than do the work would turn away work simply because of the number of years that would be required to get the necessary permitting to do the work i think a couple years makes it harder to bid because you're calculating things in the future you're going to allow for that and but those are things that are going to make every project going to become much more expensive it is to dramatically expand the reach of federal government agencies in a way that i believe will be very harmful to farmers and ranchers and small business people both in terms of cost which ultimately will be passed on to the consumer and in terms of as we talk here today in terms of time that it takes to complete some of these it is really frightening to think that any pond in the state of indiana or missouri or any other state with the word navigable with one word taken out which appeared i think eighty times in the in the act but then the federal government is going to have jurisdiction over a pond that some individual built and that some individual owns on their own land that's a very very frightening thought and it's just it can  of livestock row crop or forestry operation because currently if you take a hundred acre tract of timber and you're go find after rain for example you're going to find standing water in the areas of that timber that goes away in a day or two currently that is you know not under the jurisdiction of the corps of engineers  removed it will become that and i think mr pedley made a really good point a while ago and it would apply to forestry if you're going about your business and all of a sudden you discover water in a place that you didn't realize it was going to be you have a serious problem on your hands and if the word navigable is not in there and don't get me wrong i don't think any of us would say clean water act perfect with the word inevitable in were to say and it would be really and that's a good thing farmers as you know and both my home state of pennsylvania nationally are severely struggling it seems to me that changing the definition will only cause additional necessary costs and already struggling here today it will open the door to third party lawsuits like we can not even believe it encroaches on private property it's just totally void of common sense and i think we would all agree that there is i said a moment ago in the federal government having oversight of navigable of real navigable water and i think our definition of navigable waters would we can all get together and come up with a pretty clear definition as i said a moment ago the courts have kind of stretched that out a little bit but we are all just very frightened about what may happen and probably without a doubt will happen if the word navigable is removed i part of my farm in different areas of several feels is identified as prior converted you'd never know it walking over it but one of the concerns that not only i but so many landowners  what may happen if we change the clean water act because it's been very clearly codified that prior converted is not under the jurisdiction of the clean water act and there's a real concern about what might happen if we navigable then some of these shovel ready projects that we're going to provide jobs food on the table and taxes in the coffers so we're in washington quander it like we have been lately all that comes  forward to if you think the clean water act which i believe the general chair lady was an original co sponsor of twenty four twenty one that was introduced last believed as a fourth generation farmer in fact my dad will be ninety nine years old in september and from the time i was a little boy he continued to lecture me son you want to leave this farm in better shape then you took it over and so if we're talking about water you know we're concerned about the overreach of the federal government by taking the word  by the same token we in no way none of us here are saying that we want to disregard trying to do everything we can to make sure our water is clean our soil is good most farmers and ranchers  live on the land they care for their children and grandchildren run on the land and drink the water and breathe the air so it is important to be good stewards of the land in the water in the soil but at the same time i think you have to strike a balance and have some common sense and the fear that we've all expressed here today is the fear of taking the word navigable out of the clean water act and what that could portend down the road in you've made reference to at taken out and the and the way we treat prior converted cropland which is being discussed would be changed because that fifty five million acres of farmland that are converted and  that would dramatically have an impact on the value of the land who are saying that that ought to be clearly defined as prior converted can only be used for agricultural purposes and not for anything nine years with the e p a because we had had farmers and forestry people testify that these rules and regs that they were coming up with was killing them in the biofuel people and i asked her how many farms she had visited in twenty nine years to see some of these problems they discussed and she mentioned nine so i don't know if any of these people right now rules and regs have visited farms or if i just think milk comes from the grocery store let