12 



Mr. Johnson. Mr. Hebert, again we welcome you to the sub- 

 committee. We are very interested in your observations, your in- 

 sights on where we should be going on these very sensitive, dif- 

 ficult issues. Your entire testimony is received for the record and 

 will be shared by the entire committee. If you would feel most com- 

 fortable summarizing your testimony, take this as you will. We will 

 try to hold questions from the panel to about 5 minutes each in 

 order to expedite that. 



Mr. Hebert, proceed. 



STATEMENT OF THOMAS R. HEBERT, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SEC- 

 RETARY, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. 

 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; ACCOMPANIED BY RUSS 

 EARNEST, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, U.S. DEPART- 

 MENT OF THE INTERIOR; MICHAEL DAVIS, OFFICE OF THE 

 ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, CIVIL WORKS, U.S. 

 DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY; AND ROBERT H. WAYLAND III, 

 U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 



Mr. Hebert. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, 

 thank you very much for the opportunity to come before you today 

 and discuss these issues relating to wetlands and water quality 

 protection in agriculture. I am pleased to offer testimony on behalf 

 of Assistant Secretary James Lyons, who could not be here today, 

 and on behalf of the administration's interagency working groups 

 that prepared both the wetlands memorandum of agreement that 

 we'll discuss today as well as the administration's position on the 

 Clean Water Act. 



At USDA, our goal has always been to work for a productive ag- 

 riculture in harmony with a quality environment, and this is the 

 goal we pursued as we participated in these interagency processes. 

 We believe we can achieve this goal if everyone works together to 

 craft realistic and flexible policies that give clear and consistent di- 

 rection to the citizens at the local level where the details are best 

 decided. 



Mr. Chairman, I know how easy it is for all of us to get lost in 

 the details of all the proposals that are before us and how easy it 

 is for the various interests to focus on the remaining disagreements 

 that we have before us. In many ways, that is the very purpose of 

 this hearing, to look at those remaining disagreements, and give 

 them discussion and air them out and see what we can come up 

 with. But before we do that, I think we should stop for a moment 

 and recognize the tremendous amount of movement and agreement 

 that has occurred on the wetlands and water quality policy area 

 over the last several years; it is substantial. 



I worked for the Senate Agriculture Committee for 5 years before 

 taking this job, and in the Federal Government on agricultural pol- 

 icy before that. I am very keenly aware of the divisiveness and the 

 controversy surrounding these issues, intimately aware of the prob- 

 lems. But just imagine what the reaction would be of someone who 

 hadn't participated in any of these debates since before the 1990 

 farm bill. Let's say this person is in the hearing room today and 

 hadn't been here for the last 4 years. I believe that person would 

 be utterly amazed at what has actually transpired on these policy 

 areas. How do you think that person would react if you told him 



