Investing in A New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, first, I want to thank Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer for their leadership in bringing this important bill to the floor.

I would also like to thank Chairman Pallone for working with me on this amendment and Chairpersons DeFazio, Waters, Scott, and others for their leadership; and my colleagues, Representatives Dan Kildee, Slotkin, Cicilline, and Moore for their cosponsorship of this amendment.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my amendment because everyone deserves clean water, because water is a human right. I rise today because, in the richest country in the world, no family or child should live with poisoned water.

My amendment authorizes $4.5 billion annually, totaling $22.5 billion over the next 5 years, to replace dangerous lead water pipes throughout our Nation. This amendment also prioritizes lead pipe replacement projects serving disadvantaged communities, communities of color, low- income communities, and environmental justice communities like mine in Michigan's 13th Congressional District.

Our residents in Michigan, surrounded by the largest bodies of freshwater in the world, should not be forced to live off bottled water sold by corporations like Nestle, who make billions while paying almost nothing to bottle our water and harm our ecosystem.

Contaminated water has been a fact of life for too many communities, especially Black and Brown communities like Detroit, Flint, Baltimore, Chicago, and more. My amendment will require that lead service lines must be fully replaced and removed. No partial lead service line replacements would be funded.

Our residents deserve so much more than half measures. We owe them their human right to drink clean water. This amendment, Madam Speaker, would change lives for over 9 million homes across the country currently at risk of facing the harms of lead exposure.

The time for environmental justice is now, and this amendment is a crucial step toward finally achieving that.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment. I urge them to tell every single individual, family, child, and community in this country that they have a right to clean, safe water.

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Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to really understand the human impact of not having clean water around our country. This would help 11,000 communities across our Nation.

I urge my colleagues to support this and vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

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