"While HR 5509 contains some positive elements such as increasing government accountability and encouraging environmental services markets, the Holden-Goodlatte bill fails to achieve the critical goal of managing agricultural pollution through a conservation planning process that achieves pollution reduction.
"Instead, the bill's agricultural conservation planning provisions are an end-run on the 38-year-old Clean Water Act, and would ensure the continuing and documented contribution of pollution from agricultural sources to the rivers and streams that feed the Chesapeake Bay.
"Congressmen Holden and Goodlatte have in the past supported important measures for clean water. This bill, however, fails to set science-based goals or require consequences for failure. Anyone concerned about the thousands of miles of polluted streams and rivers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed should actively support the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act sponsored by Senator Cardin and Congressman Cummings."