Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019
Floor Speech
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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, let me thank the committee for supporting me in my very important amendments last evening, and I have another very important amendment that is before the committee here today.
Mr. Chair, I urge support for my amendment that would prevent the administration from dismantling the EPA's Great Lakes Advisory Board. I am so pleased that this bill has again rejected the President's proposal to gut the GLRI, and this amendment would prevent them from dismantling the advisory board.
Mr. Chairman, this is a critical matter for anyone who drinks water. The Great Lakes provide drinking water to some 40 million people. Let me say that again. Forty million people depend on this resource for one of life's basic requirements, water, not to mention anglers and recreation.
As an old African proverb goes, water has no enemies. So, hopefully, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is something that we are going to recognize as having played a critical role in protecting and restoring one of America's greatest national treasures, a life- sustaining element, water.
Just to mention, not to bore people with a lot of statistics, but the Great Lakes contain about 21 percent of the world's surface freshwater and more than 80 percent, 85 percent, of the freshwater in North America. This is indispensable.
As critical as this funding is, it is also important that the EPA receive advice and input from local stakeholders regarding priorities under that program. The Great Lakes Advisory Board provides such advice.
EPA established the board in 2013 to provide independent advice to the EPA administration in its capacity as chair of the Federal Great Lakes Interagency Task Force. Some of the past activities of the advisory board have been providing the EPA with recommendations regarding what are the most significant stressors and needs for the Great Lakes ecosystem; providing the EPA with recommendations on ways to ensure effective public input into the Great Lakes action plan process; and providing advice on whether the GLRI should invest in efforts to understand long-term, future threats and communicate them to the Great Lakes community for action.
In light of reports of efforts to undermine the board, on a bipartisan basis, I joined colleagues in writing to the EPA earlier this year to make clear that we support the establishment and maintenance of the board. My amendment would put teeth behind this letter and make it clear to the administration what congressional intent is regarding this important advisory board.
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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the gentleman from California. He is a very effective leader on this issue. I appreciate him.
An effective Great Lakes Advisory Board is vital to ensuring that the GLRI remains successful and impactful today and in the years to come.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to rise today to offer an amendment to increase resources available to help address a scourge that is occurring in so many of our communities: lead poisoning.
My district is facing its challenges like so many in our country, and the Federal Government must do its part by ensuring that we provide the resources to address this scourge.
Two of the most prominent vectors are old housing and old water infrastructure, lateral lead pipes. My amendment would attempt to address just one of the sources of lead, old lateral lead pipes, while recognizing the need to address housing when the appropriate funding bill comes to the floor.
Mr. Chairman, we know that children throughout America are at risk of a major public health crisis given aging drinking water infrastructure and housing stock. In my district alone, there are tens of thousands of lead service lines that pose a threat to the public health of children.
We have heard so much about Flint, Michigan, but I can tell you that lead poisoning in my district mirrors that of Flint, Michigan. I mean, Mr. Chairman, there just are no safe levels of lead for children.
As noted in a recent report by The Pew Charitable Trusts: ``In the absence of lead, hundreds of thousands of children would be more likely to realize their full potential thanks to higher grade point averages, a better chance of earning high school diplomas, and graduating from college, and a reduced likelihood of becoming teen parents or becoming convicted of crimes.'' Yet lead exposure remains a serious threat for far too many kids and their families in our country.
The only way to remove lead pipes as a source of lead contamination is to completely remove them. That is the goal that I joined with my former and dearly loved colleague, the late great Louise Slaughter, in writing to urge the EPA in March of this year to update its lead and copper rule to require the full replacement of lead service lines.
But both public utilities and private homeowners are hard pressed to finance this needed work. It is my understanding that the average cost can be somewhere between $6,000 to $8,000 to replace such lines, which is an unimaginable sum for many of the households that our constituents live in.
My amendment would provide funding for one of the newest tools that Congress created in the 2016 WRDA bill to help communities address lead pipes. This program provides grants for lead reduction projects that help reduce the concentration of lead in drinking water by, among other uses, providing assistance to low-income homeowners to replace lead service lines.
Recognizing the need, Congress authorized the program at $60 million per year; yet it received only $10 million in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus appropriations bill. While I would like to get closer to the authorized level, my amendment is modest and pragmatic and would simply continue funding for this program at the fiscal year 2018 level.
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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his stewardship and for his recognition of the importance of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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