| Washington, D.C.-Thundering through the legislative
process in the waning weeks of the first session of the 106th Congress,
H.R. 728, the "Small Watershed Rehabilitation Amendments of 1999" today
cleared another legislative hurdle. U.S. Sixth District Frank Lucas
shepherded his bill through the amending and voting process today in the
full U.S. House Agriculture Committee where it passed with the unanimous
approval of the 38 Members present at committee. The bill, introduced
by Lucas in February, would establish a rehabilitation process for the
nation's approximately 10,500 aging earthen upstream flood control structures,
over 2,000 of which are located in Oklahoma.
The bill passed out of committee with only two amendments, both of which
Lucas supported.
"I am very pleased with today's passage and with the perfecting amendments
we attached to the bill," Lucas said. "I have gathered lots of input
from my colleagues and conservation folks in Oklahoma since I originally
introduced this bill in February. We were able to put those ideas
into the bill during the committee process today."
One amendment insures that local authorities have the ability to clean
out stream beds after floods. The other accepted amendment protects
confidential information farmers provide to the Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS) from being shared with other federal agencies.
"It has been a good couple of weeks," Lucas said. "With the introduction
of companion legislation to my bill in the U.S. Senate last week and now
today's final approval by the U.S. House Ag Committee, it is apparent that
Members have an understanding of the need for this rehabilitation process
and are now showing their support.
"We still have to push this bill through the House Transportation Committee
and House Resources Committee, as they have jurisdiction as well," Lucas
said. "The first step will be to move for consideration in a Transportation
subcommittee."
Lucas' bill authorizes $60 million a year for 10 years and requires
the Secretary of the Agriculture to establish a system of ranking and approving
rehabilitation requests on need and merit. Specifically, the legislation
calls for $5 million to be used annually by the Secretary to assess the
true needs of the entire program in the first two years of the program's
existence.
The national small watershed program was authorized through various
public laws passed in the 1940s and 1950s. The life expectancy of
these upstream watershed dams is 50 years and already more than 1,000 of
these community sponsored-U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) assisted dams
throughout the United States are over 40 years old. They are aging
across the nation and becoming dangerous to life and property. The
USDA's NRCS oversees the program. At present, there are no laws on
the books to address or authorize rehabilitation of these aging structures. |
