Statement of 



The Honorable Larry Combest, M.C. 



Subcommittee on Environment, Credit and Rural Development 



Committee on Agriculture 



March 23, 1994 



Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to make a few general comments about the 

 legislation before the Subcommittee this morning and about reauthorization of the Clean 

 Water Act. All of us on this Committee - and throughout the Congress for that matter 

 — need to understand the profound impact much of this legislation will have on American 

 agriculture should it become law. 



While researching and addressing any potential non-point source pollution caused by 

 agriculture is important I am extremely concerned that America's farmers and ranchers now 

 are characterized by many interest groups as reported in the press as the last class of non- 

 point source polluters who must be stopped. The environmental community does not 

 appear to recognize that thousands of individual agricultural producers are making rational 

 decisions about their operations based on sound economic and environmental variables that 

 exist in their neighborhoods and their agricultural regions. Instead, environmentalists 

 conclude that U.S. agriculture is some kind of corporate conglomerate that can be controlled 

 from Washington with the correct mix of bureaucratic pressure and punishments. Those of 

 us from farm country are concerned about that. 



My folks in west Texas like clean water and don't need the force of Washington to 

 convince them to protect their water and other resources. Some parts of the country talk 

 about runoff into lakes, rivers, and streams. In west Texas we have very few lakes, rivers, 



