Water Resources Development Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the bill we are debating, the Water Resources Development Act. I will begin by commending the chairman of the EPW Committee, Senator Inhofe, and the ranking member, Senator Boxer, for their leadership on this legislation.

Sometimes it is important to just look at what these bills are doing. The Water Resources Development Act--WRDA, we call it here--the title says:

To provide for the conservation and development of water and related resources, to authorize the Secretary of the Army to construct various projects for improvements to rivers and harbors of the United States, and for other purposes.

One of the things I have come to the floor of the Senate to speak on a number of times is one of the most important things I think we should be doing in the Senate, and that is focusing on our economy. With all due respect to the minority leader with regard to the economy in the United States, things are not going well. Just over the past two quarters, we again had numbers that were dismal by any historical measure in the United States. Last quarter, I think we had 1.5 percent GDP growth, and the quarter before that, we had 0.8 percent GDP growth. As a matter of fact, President Obama will be the first President in U.S. history who never hit 8 percent GDP growth in 1 year--never. No President has had such a dismal regard in terms of growing the economy.

What should we be doing? First of all, we need to focus on the economy. One of the critical things we should be doing in the Congress--one of the things we need to unleash to the private sector is better infrastructure for this country. Again, I commend the chairman of the EPW Committee and the ranking member because they have been leaders on this issue. Last year, we passed the first long-term highway bill in many years with the FAST Act. That is infrastructure for the country. Right now, hopefully, the Senate will pass the WRDA bill.

These aren't perfect pieces of legislation. No piece of legislation ever is. For example, I think both of them could have had provisions that streamlined the permitting process to build bridges, roads, and ports. Right now in this country, it often takes years to cut through the redtape to get permission from the Federal Government to build infrastructure. We need to do a better job on that. But the FAST Act and now the WRDA bill are important bills. They are important bills to help us grow our economy, and that is why I am supporting the WRDA bill we are debating here on the floor.

There are many provisions in this bill that are going to benefit different parts of the country. It will certainly benefit the State of Alaska. We are a young State. We are infrastructure poor, for sure, in terms of roads, ports, and harbors.

One provision I wish to highlight is section 7106, the Small and Disadvantaged Communities Grant Program. This is a new program that I had the opportunity to work on with my team, Senator Inhofe's team, Senator Boxer's team, and Senator Wicker. We are all focused on this issue. It stemmed from an important topic we were discussing.

I know my colleague and friend, Senator Peters from Michigan, is going to talk about Flint, MI, and what happened there and the topic of our aging infrastructure. I certainly respect his advocacy for his constituents on this topic.

We have been talking about our aging infrastructure, but one topic we didn't talk a lot about in the Senate--and I certainly tried to raise it a lot--is not just aging infrastructure, but how about the topic of no infrastructure for communities in the United States? I know a lot of Americans don't know this, but there are a lot of communities in our great Nation that have no clean water, no sewer, and no toilets that flush--entire communities in America. Think about that. They have no running water and no toilets that flush. They have what we call in Alaska honey buckets. Sounds sweet, of course, but it is not sweet; it is literally American citizens having to haul their own waste from their house to a lagoon and dump it there. Can you believe that in America we have entire communities--in my State over 30--that have that problem? What this causes is often very high rates of disease, such as skin disease, ear infections, and sometimes at third-world disease rates. Again, this is happening in America. I think it is unacceptable, and I think most of my colleagues believe it is unacceptable. It is not right.

That is where the new provision, the Small and Disadvantaged Communities Grant Program, comes in as part of this bill. It prioritizes assistance to small communities throughout our country that don't have basic drinking water or wastewater services. This is a 5- year program that is in the bill. It authorizes $1.4 billion to address what I think the vast majority of Americans would agree is an unacceptable condition in certain communities throughout our great Nation. No American community should have to rely on honey buckets. No American community should have Third World disease rates because they don't have water and sewer.

So this WRDA bill is a serious start to address this issue. It is a significant challenge. It is not going to be addressed overnight, but I think everybody in this Senate can agree we shouldn't have communities of hundreds of people in our great Nation who don't have basic services that the vast majority of Americans take for granted and assume that every community in our great country has, but we don't.

This is a good start to do what one Governor of Alaska put out as a vision and a goal, which is to put the honey bucket in a museum, and that is what we are going to try to do beginning with this program.

I encourage my colleagues to support the WRDA bill that is being debated on the floor. I again wish to thank Chairman Inhofe and Senator Boxer for their leadership on this important piece of legislation.

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