U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-9) voted again today against H.R. 3650, the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act. On Tuesday, March 9, a similar version of H.R. 3650 was defeated under suspension of the rules. Rep. Luetkemeyer made the following statement for the Congressional Record after voting against H.R. 3650 earlier this week:

Madam Speaker,

Yesterday, the House voted down HR 3650, the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act. This bill would have cost an estimated $153 million of taxpayer dollars for 2010 through 2014 and $22 million after 2014 to establish a new task force charged with responding to hypoxia events and, among other items, implementing and overseeing the Regional Research and Action Plans. I joined with 141 of my colleagues and voted against this misguided bill. I understand and appreciate that the health of our rivers is of vital importance to the 9^th District of Missouri and to the nation, and I believe that responsible environmental management is critically important to national commerce and infrastructure. However, agriculture has been forced to bear the brunt of environmental attacks for long enough. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) point the finger at agriculture as a contributor of gulf hypoxia, particularly through the dumping of sediment and runoff of fertilizer, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) at the direction of US Fish and Wildlife Service is digging chutes that are up to 25 feet deep, 200 to 300 feet wide, and sometimes over one mile long to provide shallow water habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon. According to the Missouri Clean Water Commission, the Corps will dump 34 million metric tons of sediment into the Missouri River annually. This soil contains a significant amount of phosphorous, a known cause of hypoxia. All of this without facing fines from the EPA, which have been levied against farmers and businesses along the river, because the Corps was able to obtain a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit granted by themselves. Instead of continually attacking agriculture and small business and trivially spending hard earned taxpayer dollars, perhaps the federal government should spend some time investigating its own actions.