Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Chair, I thank Representative Scholten for yielding time.

Mr. Chair, I rise today to oppose the dirty water act. This bill will make it more difficult to keep our water clean and will, ironically, add more uncertainty to the permitting process, just the opposite of what we need to have happen. This bill guts Federal, State, Tribal, and local authority and resources to attain clean water and protect locally important water bodies.

First, this bill significantly restricts Federal oversight and regulatory authorities under the Clean Water Act. The current administration has already acted to slash Federal funding for clean water and eliminate agency staff. This bill compounds those efforts and will leave Federal agencies powerless to fulfill their responsibilities under the Clean Water Act.

Second, the bill undermines the partnership that the Federal Government has with States and Tribes to prevent pollution, weakening States' and Tribes' ability to better protect their own water. The result will be more pollution in our Nation's rivers, streams, and lakes, thanks to loopholes, legal shields, and limited oversight of polluters.

Third, this bill will end up slowing projects by increasing regulatory uncertainty and delay. Democrats want to pass bills that invest in infrastructure and get projects done faster. That is why we passed the bipartisan infrastructure law. It invested in all types of infrastructure for communities nationwide. Fully funding projects and the Federal agencies charged with approving them is the quickest way to get this infrastructure built.

Instead, this bill, when paired with efforts to cut funding, as well as other Federal water infrastructure programs, will slow down investments in cleaner, greener, safer, and more accessible State and local projects.

Under this bill, communities of all sizes will end up with dirtier water and be left with the cost of cleanup. This will hurt rural communities and minority communities. It will hurt them especially hard, as well as other communities struggling financially under the policies of the current administration.

This bill shifts the cost of pollution from polluters to American families who will have to spend more for safe drinking water and access to water-related recreational areas if such resources are even still available.

Members of this committee on a bipartisan basis have supported predictability in regulating clean water, and there is another way. We don't have to choose between clean water and a robust economy. We can have both. My State is a great example. It is defined by its clean water, including the Puget Sound and hundreds of lakes and thousands of miles of rivers and streams throughout Washington.

We all know that rivers, streams, and wetlands are intrinsically connected. The health of the waters in my State and its water-related economy depend upon a strong partnership with the Federal Government and a level playing field among its upstream users and downstream neighbors, including local Tribal communities.

During the consideration of this bill in the committee, my Democratic colleagues offered several amendments to fix the loopholes, liability shields, and limited oversight for polluters contained in this bill. These amendments targeted the most egregious provisions of this bill, not every provision of the bill.

It targeted provisions that eviscerated Federal and State clean water agencies; provisions that made it easier for polluters to put more toxic and cancer-causing chemicals in waters such as PFAS, arsenic, and pesticides; and provisions that endanger not only our own health but the health of local, regional, and State economies. These were all defeated on party-line votes, unfortunately.

Honestly, I do look forward to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee returning to its bipartisan work and creating effective legislation that will upgrade our infrastructure, that will build our economy and create jobs, all while protecting our waters.

Mr. Chair, unfortunately, the outcome of this bill, if enacted, will be increasing pollution and contamination of our waters. I oppose this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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