npdes permitting system as you know mister chairman and i believe you will hear others refer to this morning court decisions in recent years have put pesticide applicators on a path of being required to obtain npdes permits for applications made into over or near waters of the united states even though such applications are already regulated by the federal insecticide fungicide and rodenticide act i have heard as have others that in the development of a permit to comply with the courts decisions that epa has not conducted thorough outreach to the industry and to growers has not effectively sought input from the regulated industry or state governments has not relied on the best scientific information has not clearly defined the waters that would  permits and those that would not and has not considered the practical implementations of proposals on products used labels et cetera and has not considered the economic impacts of the permitting process or completed it consultation with other key federal agencies with the deadline for issuance of the permit requirements coming this fall and with an impact that even epa admits will affect hundreds of thousands of applicators and millions of pesticide applications the uncertainty and apparent lack of consideration in epas efforts is very troubling to my membership particularly when it is also far from clear that an additional permit would provide significant additional protection to the environment i am aware that the house of representatives recently passed legislation to clarify that such permits are duplicative and unnecessary i commend that action and urge the senate to follow suit however i also hope that congress will do everything it can to make epas efforts to develop a permit transparent based on sound science and with much needed input from the ag community there are other specific issues that i touch entire opening statements are going to be in the record so that you do not need to fret that you get everything in in the first go round mister smith good morning congressman issa and our local congressman mister farr i have to bring a point of order about your introductory remarks because you talked about the salad bowl but you failed to recognize that we have a balanced diet here we have got beef cattle and i am richard smith i am a grape grower from soledad here in the salinas valley i farm about three thousand acres on seventeen properties spread over fifty miles up and down the valley my avocation apparently is to study and comment on sciences related to our ag political issues i have studied and advocated for research education and extension water issues and technology and agriculture understanding the physical chemical and biotechnological aspects of our business i believe that legislation is the portal through which good ideas become part of a societys protocol unfortunately in my opinion our systems of legislation and regulation that exist today are dysfunctional i think i sound like tom they pose a significant problem for productive citizens assuming the legislation was well intended and i will grant that for this discussion is unfortunate that the legislation is generally followed by regulatory fiats created by unelected boards or administrative staff these rules often compromise complicate or deviate from the original good intentions of the legislation regulations enforcement of regulations and the ensuing regulatory court cases ultimately create incremental new law my sense of a dysfunctional legislative system is one that creates this extra legislative body of law these rules and regulations are often not exposed to hearings or legislators we agricultural producers eventually deal directly with the legal consequences of these rules and regulations generally we are busy doing our job or perhaps sleeping at the wheel while various advocacies use the legal system to modify the well intended laws into onerous regulations we seldom pay any real attention to this insidious process the endangered species act imagine that we are all talking about that today is an example of a hypothetical good intent gone awry i assume the esa has a general intent to mitigate the loss of diverse species by identifying plants and animals at risk of extinction and providing mechanisms to mitigate those losses however the regulatory system developed to enforce the esa has become an expensive barrier to almost any development any perceived loss of habitat or any isolated subspecies is a reason to stop a land use or an activity this is the case even if there is no significant impact even if a relatively unlimited habitat remains available to the species in question and there are many additional miles along the tributaries it is one of the many esa issues that are protracting the process to get the appropriate permits to pursue this maintenance task obstruction shouldnt be the intent or the result of esa laws or rules in fact the environmental protection agency the army corps of engineers the national marine fisheries service the u s fish and wildlife and probably at least four state agencies all can be forced through petitions or courts to consider the esa requirements and require an environmental impact report before approving any such maintenance task this is a task that we successfully performed for almost fifteen years after the one thousand nine hundred and ninety five flood sometimes i think that we in the community are wasting our time and money asking permission to do a responsible job i wonder if we should force modifications in the epa rules by filing our lawsuit we can claim that the water resources agency created substantial risks by the changes in the river environment caused by the operation of the dams a court should say our continuous flow now supports a tremendous population of plants another federal regulatory bill the clean water act also has many significant issues where i think the federal authority over land uses has interpreted and reinterpreted by the army corps epa and the courts the consequences of those interpretations keep lawyers employed almost without a break amendments from many diverse venues are being proposed to congress with the purpose of clarifying the intent of this federal legislation and the regulations that follow this act has been modified to encompass far reaching consequences in california have written the porter cologne act supposedly to further develop the intent of the clean water act state regulators administrative staff are proposing fiats that go way beyond the clean water act intent porter cologne is supposed to use the language and intent of the clean water act which specifically exempts agriculture from the definition of point source pollution which the clean water act is intended to newly proposed regulations actually are scientifically unachievable successful research education and extension models of soil and water resource improvement projects are being abandoned we have had a five or six year program of developing education and outreach the system that is being proposed is a regulatory and enforcement regime a system to raise operating funds with licenses and appreciate the opportunity to be here my name is norm groot and i am the executive director of the monterey county farm bureau representing family farmers and ranchers in the interest of protecting and promoting agriculture throughout monterey county we strive to improve the ability of those engaged in production agriculture to provide a reliable supply of food and fiber through reasonable stewardship of our natural resources increasingly this has become a difficult mission to