Beach Protection Act of 2007

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chairman, I am very excited the House is moving H.R. 2537, the Beach Protection Act of 2007. This is an example of the good we can accomplish when we are able to work in a bipartisan manner to address the Nation's water resources needs.

Beaches are an important part of American life. Our Nation has nearly 23,000 miles of ocean and Gulf shoreline along the continental United States, 5,500 miles of Great Lakes shorelines and 3.6 million miles of rivers and streams. Beaches are an important part of the coastal watershed, providing numerous recreational opportunities for millions of people, including fishing, boating, beachcombing, swimming, surfing, sunbathing and bird watching.

Each year, over 180 million people visit coastal waters for recreational purposes. This activity supports over 28 million jobs and leads to the investment of over $50 billion each year in goods and services. Public confidence in the quality of our Nation's water is important, not only to each citizen who swims, but also to the tourism and recreation industries that rely on safe and swimmable coastal waters.

To improve the public's confidence in the quality of our Nation's coastal waters and protect public health and safety, Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000, commonly called the BEACH Act in the 106th Congress.

The BEACH Act aimed to limit and prevent human exposure to polluted coastal recreational waters by assisting States and local communities to implement beach monitoring, assessment and public notification programs. The act also called on States with coastal recreational waters to adopt pathogen-related water quality standards and directed EPA to conduct research and develop updated water quality criteria to protect human health. Under the BEACH Act, EPA has been making grants to States to help them implement programs to monitor beach water quality and notify the public if water quality standards for pathogens are not being met.

An important indicator of progress to date is the fact that all eligible States are now implementing the beach monitoring assessment and public notification provisions of the BEACH Act. The number of monitored beaches has increased from approximately 1,000 in 1997 to more than 3,500 in 2006.

In addition, EPA has strengthened water quality standards throughout all the coastal recreation waters in the United States. All 35 States and territories with coastal recreation waters now have water quality standards as protective of human health as EPA's water quality criteria. This is an increase from 11 States and territories in 2000.

Further, EPA has improved public access to data on beach advisories and closings by improving the agency's electronic beach data collection and delivery systems. Moreover, EPA has been conducting cutting edge research to support the development of new water quality criteria to protect human health from pathogens and new monitoring methods to more accurately and rapidly detect pathogen contamination in recreational waters.

Faster and better decisions are good for public health and good for the economy and beach communities. We are optimistic that this work will help State beach managers make the best decisions possible about keeping beaches open or placing them under advisory.

Although EPA and the States have made substantial progress in implementing the BEACH Act, there is important work left to do in the areas of monitoring, research and updating the existing water quality criteria.

Reauthorizing the BEACH Act will enable EPA and the States to complete the important work they have begun so they can better protect public health and safety and continue to improve the quality of our Nation's recreational coastal waters so important to the economies of our coastal communities.

H.R. 2537 passed the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by a unanimous vote. I would like to thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Oberstar, and the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, and especially a thank you to the ranking member, Mr. Mica, for all the hard work they have done put in to allow us to bring to you a consensus bill that enjoys strong bipartisan support.

I would also very much like to thank the staff. We have a bipartisan amendment that will be offered by Ms. Johnson at the appropriate time. It addresses technical and clarifying matters and other matters brought to the committee's attention since the committee filed its report.

I urge all Members to support the legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Madam Chairman, we don't have any additional speakers. I would urge support of H.R. 2537. I appreciate the hard work of the staffs on both sides in bringing this before Congress today. I appreciate the leadership of the individuals involved and would just urge that we adopt the bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. BOOZMAN. I agree with Mr. Flake and Mr. Pence about the situation of needing to earmark responsibly. And certainly earmarking to protect vulnerable Members, in fact, anything of that certainly is not for the good of the country and the good of Congress or whatever.

I guess what I question is that in this particular amendment, in this particular bill, I think it is inappropriate. This program is a formula-based grants program that has not been earmarked in the past and there's no plans to earmark it in the future.

We are not talking about beach restoration. We are not talking about beach reclamation. We are talking about a bill that allows States, allows beaches, to monitor pathogens so that when a family from Arkansas goes to Florida or goes to South Carolina, wherever they go, and they pull up, that they can, with safety, get out and swim in the waters without it being a cesspool. I wish that more people would sneak an earmark in the night to protect their beach. Again, that is not going to happen with this bill. It is not the purpose of the bill.

So I would ask that we vote against this, and yet again I feel very strongly that what Mr. Pence is saying, what Mr. Flake is trying to do with his amendment is appropriate, but not in this particular vehicle. I don't think that it pertains at all.

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