Support of Amendment No. 35 to H.R. 3055

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my amendment numbered 35 to Division A of H.R. 3055 to direct the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies to establish standards for pyrrhotite in concrete aggregate. Pyrrhotite is a mineral that unfortunately has been mixed into concrete aggregate and is widespread in concrete foundations and residential commercial municipal buildings in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and parts of Quebec, Canada, that after exposure to moisture, causes the material to premature crumbling and collapse because of rusting.

Estimates are as high as thousands of structures in the New England region are affected with crumbling foundations, causing catastrophic losses to homeowners and municipalities. By establishing standards for pyrrhotite content, NIST could mitigate the problem from occurring in other areas, or at least reduce the costs of mitigation.

Right now, any level of pyrrhotite is considered a cancer on a property and makes it unmarketable. This amendment would allocate $4 million from the NIST general operations funds towards pyrrhotite research, which my office and others have been discussing over the last year. The amendment would require NIST to research the best testing methods for pyrrhotite detection, as well as to develop a pyrrhotite risk rating scale. This amendment would utilize the world's leading researchers to mitigate the cost of this problem. In addition, my amendment requests that NIST work with leading academic institutions in this area to expedite this research process--including expediting the procurement process for obtaining concrete samples, should NIST need to utilize core samples containing pyrrhotite to conduct this research.

I urge adoption of this en-bloc package, and I want to thank Mr. Aderholt and Mr. Serrano for their kind support for this measure.

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