Nutria Eradication and Control Reauthorization Act of 2025

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 776) to reauthorize the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 776, the bill now under consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of Representative Harder's legislation, which would reauthorize the nutria eradication program at existing funding levels through 2030.

This bill is identical to the one passed in the House during the last week of the 118th Congress. Unfortunately, it failed to receive a vote in the Senate. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak again in support of this important legislation.

Nutria are invasive rodents native to South America that were imported to the United States in 1899 for fur production. Since then, the nutria population has exploded in places like northern California, Oregon, and the Louisiana bayous, as well as the Chesapeake Bay and Eastern Shore ecosystems.

These rodents eat, dig, and trample healthy wetland habitats, causing significant erosion and habitat damage to native ecosystems.

When this legislation was first enacted in 2003, an estimated 70 percent of the Chesapeake Bay's marshlands had already been destroyed by nutria. Due to the aid of this program, nutria eradication efforts have been very successful.

For example, in Maryland, they have been declared eradicated. In Louisiana, where more than 432,000 acres were damaged or destroyed by nutria from 2002 to 2021, over 5 million nutria have been taken. Passing the legislation would allow these successful efforts to continue.

I thank Representative Valadao for co-leading this legislation, which will benefit California's Central Valley in its work to eradicate nutria.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 776, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I commend Representative Harder for his bipartisan work and his hard work to bring this important bill to the floor.

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 776 would reauthorize a program that has proven very effective in protecting our country's vital wetlands and marshes from destructive invasive species. While great work has been accomplished in controlling these invasive pests, or swamp rats, as my colleague called them, continuing the nutria eradication program is crucial to ensuring our native species of plants and animals can recover.

Madam Speaker, I note that if gators and Cajuns can't eradicate these things from south Louisiana, we know our friends in the Central Valley need help, as well. I thank my colleagues for their diligent work on this bill, and I urge all Members to support this commonsense, bipartisan legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, which would reauthorize the Nutria Eradication and Control Act through fiscal year 2030, to ensure that Maryland, Louisiana, and California can manage and eradicate this destructive, invasive species.

Nutria are an invasive species of large, semiaquatic rodents found in coastal wetlands along the Gulf of Mexico, the East Coast, California, and other wetland areas within the United States.

Nutria were initially introduced into the United States in the 1930s for fur production. However, their rapid breeding and destructive tendencies toward native wetland vegetation have led to extensive erosion, displacement of native species, breached levees, and the

introduction of diseases and parasites that threaten humans, livestock, and pets.

These actions pose severe threats to our national wetlands, which are essential habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife and act as buffers for extreme weather events.

According to estimates, if measures had not been adopted to control and eradicate nutria in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, nutria could have destroyed 17 percent of the bay's marshes in just a few years.

In 2003, the Nutria Eradication and Control Act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to provide financial assistance to Maryland and Louisiana for a program to eradicate or control nutria and restore marshland damaged by nutria.

In 2020, Congress passed Representative Harder's bill to amend the Nutria Eradication and Control Act to include California, which faced a rapidly expanding breeding population of nutria in the San Joaquin Valley and adjacent areas. That bill also gave the Secretary of the Interior discretion to provide funding to States adversely affected by growing nutria populations through fiscal year 2025. This bill before us today would extend that authority to fiscal year 2030.

The Nutria Eradication and Control Act has significantly reduced nutria populations in all three States. In Maryland, nutria were entirely eradicated from Chesapeake Bay in 2022. In California, captures peaked in 2020 and have been steadily declining, but they are not yet fully eradicated.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill so this important work can continue, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Harder), the sponsor of the bill.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, the Nutria Eradication and Control Reauthorization Act of 2025, because communities in California and across the country are in a war right now against these giant swamp rats.

My bill would reauthorize funding to strengthen eradication efforts for the invasive swamp rats, nutria, which are destroying our levees, harming local farmland, and infecting our very drinking water.

These 40-pound monsters are larger than the average dog. They eat 25 percent of their body weight every day and can reproduce 200 offspring every single year.

In 2023 alone, 78 percent of the nutria found in California were in newly infested areas, threatening our entire way of life. The only way to stop their spreading invasion is to support local eradication and control efforts.

In 2020, I was proud to work with President Trump to bring nutria eradication funding to California for the first time ever. Now, the funding is set to expire at the end of this fiscal year, right when we need it most. This comes at a time when our district is at a breaking point with nutria control efforts.

Last year, more than 1,300 nutria were captured in California, which is a record-breaking year for takings in the State.

We must reauthorize the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003 to ensure States like California, Louisiana, and Florida are able to effectively curb the spread of this swamp rat once and for all.

We know that following wildlife management techniques to control and eradicate nutria is effective. For instance, the Chesapeake Bay region successfully eradicated nutria from their communities in 2018 after almost two decades of infestation.

We can't afford to let our foot off of the gas in California now. It is up to us to reauthorize this program to ensure that nutria is not only eradicated in the Chesapeake Bay region but in the United States.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass my bill to stop this infestation from poisoning our waterways and damaging our communities. I also want to take the time to thank my colleague, Mr. Valadao, for his tireless support of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I missed a series of votes today. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 28 and YEA on Roll Call No. 29.

Mr. Speaker, I missed the following votes, but had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 28 and YEA on Roll Call No. 29.