To amend the Coastal Barrier Resources Act to create an exemption for certain shoreline borrow sites.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 524, a bill I introduced to amend the Coastal Barrier Resources Act to create an exemption for certain shoreline borrow sites.

This legislation, which passed the House Natural Resources Committee unanimously, resolves an issue for a handful of coastal communities that have unique and longstanding beach nourishment project borrow sites.

For background, the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982 created certain protected coastal zones, known as CBRA zones, along the Atlantic, Gulf, and coasts of the Great Lakes.

Under that law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prohibits Federal investment in these areas due to the risk associated with coastal natural disasters. While this is intended to protect human life and taxpayer dollars, in a few select cases for which this bill is focused, a recent revision of implementation has inadvertently created uncertainty for these longstanding projects necessary to keep these coastal communities safe during storms.

For example, and as has already been cited, Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, which is in my district, has been utilizing sand from Masonboro Inlet for their beach nourishment project for more than 50 years. The natural erosion of sand from the beach is guided by the current and continually deposits south of the beach in Masonboro Inlet.

Every 4 years, just like clockwork, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dredged the inlet of this sand and returned it to Wrightsville Beach.

For 50 years, this natural cycle has served as a reliable ecological borrow site for our coastal community and, by the way, is home to an abundance of wildlife. Placement of the sand solidifies the dunes and berms, creating a natural protective barrier for the community that protects both property and life. This process has been the most cost- effective and ecologically friendly for other coastal communities with similar natural erosion cycles as well.

To share a little more history for perspective, CBRA zones eliminated the use of these natural borrow sites for nourishment purposes with the enactment of the 1982 law. However, shortly after enactment of that law, a clarification was made to prevent communities like Wrightsville Beach to use these historic borrow sites. Literally decades later, that clarification was reversed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the request of the Department of the Interior in 2021, undoing decades of precedent and preventing these communities from using such site.

Under the current interpretation, communities such as mine at Wrightsville Beach would be forced to dredge offshore, leading to skyrocketing costs for taxpayers, not to mention changing the natural ecology of these areas in ways that may have significant unintended consequences.

Reversing this action to, once again, permit the use of a beach's natural, historic borrow site is imperative for physical resiliency and safety, as well as the local economic benefits that accrue. Further, it will save taxpayer dollars and protect the ecology of these areas that has developed over all these years.

Mr. Speaker, simply put, the bill before us today resolves this issue for good by putting the original decades-old clarification into law. It allows for the use of historical borrow sites within a CBRA zone provided such site has been utilized for the past 15 years in response to an emergency.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support passage of this legislation. I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for their work with me to produce this bipartisan project that solves a real problem for many in these particular communities.

Mr. Speaker, the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA as we call it, is a great example of successful Federal land management. When President Reagan signed it in 1982, he explained that without this statute, the Federal Government would be subsidizing development in risky areas and would subsequently be on the hook for disaster costs when storms inevitably hit these vulnerable regions.

He said that CBRA would ``halt the Federal subsidy spiral,'' by discouraging Federal investments in development on storm-prone coastal lands, lands that, if developed, would put human lives and property at risk, and also cost taxpayers billions of dollars in disaster relief.

In the years since this law was enacted, the U.S. taxpayer has saved over $9.5 billion in disaster costs alone and the act has protected millions of acres of habitat.

Mr. Speaker, I will hand it to President Reagan. Signing this bill into law was actually in line with conservative conservation, mainly because CBRA was and is the type of innovative policy we need to conserve habitat and make our coastlines more resilient to climate change, all while saving American taxpayers money.

I thank Mr. Rouzer for working with Democrats to produce a bill that we can all support today. As the bill was originally introduced, it would have amended CBRA to allow taxpayer dollars to subsidize taking sand from CBRA units for beach renourishment at a handful of beaches outside the CBRA system.

Without careful limits, this practice can be destructive to fish and wildlife habitat. It can also cause more erosion for communities downdrift of the sand borrow site.

I said during our hearing and our markup on this bill that if we are going to grant an exception to CBRA like this, we need to be careful. We need to ensure that it is in the spirit of CBRA, meaning that we need to first protect habitat and coastal barriers and not let Federal subsidies spiral into a cascade of more and more Federal subsidies in these areas.

Democrats raised this concern during committee consideration, and I thank Mr. Rouzer and my other colleagues across the aisle for working with us and finding a bipartisan solution.

This amended version of the bill that we are voting on today would instead provide that, in the case of a federally declared disaster and with careful environmental analysis, a narrow exemption can be granted for using a CBRA unit as a borrow site for towns in a state of emergency.

With this clarifying language, I am pleased to support the solution and the revised bill. I do also hope that this bill's passage in the House will help build some momentum for the broader CBRA package that Representatives Kiggans and Blunt Rochester, as well as Senators Carper and Graham and others have been negotiating.

We need responsible, equitable, science-based management of public lands and taxpayer dollars, and I think this updated version of H.R. 524, in combination with that broader CBRA package, would achieve that objective by addressing the issues at hand and protecting the integrity of the CBRA system.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 524) to amend the Coastal Barrier Resources Act to create an exemption for certain shoreline borrow sites, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 524, as amended, the bill now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 524, sponsored by my colleague Congressman Rouzer of North Carolina. This bill amends the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, to ensure coastal communities have access to the resources they need to renourish their beaches, protect public safety, and strengthen their local economies.

This bill would amend CBRA to ensure communities that have been using sites located within the CBRA's system as a source of sand to renourish beaches in response to an emergency between December 31, 2008, and December 31, 2023, will be allowed to continue doing so.

Without it, communities like Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, in Mr. Rouzer's district, which has been using the same site for the last 60 years to renourish its beach, would be left with few realistic and cost-effective options to carry out their necessary projects, which serve as a critical tool in protecting vulnerable communities.

As we heard from the mayor of Wrightsville Beach at the hearing on this bill, enacting H.R. 524 would enable both the Federal Government and local governments to achieve the primary goals of CBRA at a lower cost to taxpayers by avoiding the necessity to complete beach nourishment using sand from offshore sites.

For example, the most recent completed beach nourishment event took place in 2018 at a cost of $11.9 million. If Wrightsville Beach is forced to utilize an offshore borrow site, costs could exceed $25 million for the same project.

This is a commonsense bill that protects coastal communities while accomplishing the goals of CBRA.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Rouzer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, America is blessed with pristine coastlines that are both vital ecosystems and vital economic engines. CBRA is an important safeguard that helps us as a Nation balance these two important factors. H.R. 524 furthers this ideal by ensuring that local communities who rely on beach renourishment projects to protect their citizens and their beaches can responsibly continue to do so.

I thank Congressman Rouzer, once again, for his leadership on this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.