New York City Watershed Protection Program Reauthorization
Floor Speech
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, today we are considering H.R. 2771, a bill passed by the Committee on Energy and Commerce to reauthorize the New York City Watershed Protection Program for 7 years.
I am not opposed to demonstration projects for monitoring New York City watershed, but it seems odd that of the more than a dozen core provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act that expired in 2003, the House leadership has managed to find time for consideration of the management of one bill which singles out a small demonstration grant program that benefits only one State for a 7-year reauthorization.
During the Committee on Energy and Commerce's consideration of this bill, Democratic members questioned the wisdom of reauthorizing a provision that President Bush did not include in his 2005 budget. Given that, the subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Commerce with oversight over this legislation, requested that the Bush administration provide the committee with a witness who could explain the administration's position on the bill, and explain why the President chose not to request funding for the program. The administration did not provide the committee with such a witness or with the requested information.
The ranking Democrat on the Committee on Commerce, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, sent a letter to Administrator Leavitt asking those questions and requesting that he provide an answer by last Friday, April 30, so the House Members could make an informed vote on the bill.
Administrator Leavitt still has not responded to that request.
Mr. Speaker, that letter is as follows:
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE,
Washington, DC, April 12, 2004.
Hon. Michael R. Leavitt,
Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC
Dear Administrator Leavitt: The Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials held a hearing and markup on Friday, April 2, 2004, on H.R. 2771, a bill to reauthorize financial assistance to the State of New York for demonstration projects implemented as part of the New York City Watershed Protection Program. The legislation would reauthorize Section 1443(d) of the Safe Drinking Water Act to extend the annual authorization of $15,000,000 to the year 2010. None of the other thirteen provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act whose annual authorizations expired in 2003 would be extended or reauthorized.
The Committee majority staff informed the minority staff that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was unable to provide a witness at the hearing to testify on the President's budget requests for the New York Watershed Program. The EPA witness from Region 2 who did appear at the hearing was also unable to provide the Administration's position on H.R. 2771.
Therefore, I request a response to the following questions not later than close of business on Friday, April 30, 2004:
1. Does the Administration support H.R. 2771?
2. Please explain why President Bush's budget for FY 2005 did not contain any requested funding to implement Section 1443(d), the New York Watershed Protection Program. In addition, please explain why none of President Bush's previous budgets for FY 2002, FY 2003, or FY 2004 contained any funding requests to provide financial assistance to the State of New York for the demonstration projects authorized by Section 1443(d).
3. Is it correct that the first financial assistance provided by the EPA from appropriations earmarks to the State of New York for the demonstration projects authorized by Section 1443(d) was on or about September 30, 1997? Is it also correct that the report from the Governor of New York on the results of projects assisted as required by Section 1443(d)(2) was due to be submitted to the EPA Administrator on or about September 30, 2002?
Thank you for your cooperation with this matter. If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact me or have your staff contact Dick Frandsen, Senior Minority Counsel, at 202-225-3641.
Sincerely,
John D. Dingell,
Ranking Member.
Hilda L. Solis,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, Democratic members expressed concern over the fact that H.R. 2771 seeks to reauthorize the program for an additional 6 years beyond the Senate companion to this bill.
The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) offered an amendment to H.R. 2771 during the markup of the bill, a markup that would have reauthorized the bill for one additional year. This 1-year authorization would have ensured authorized funding of the New York City Watershed Project during the appropriations process.
The amendment would have also allowed us to revisit the New York City Watershed Bill during a comprehensive review of the entire Safe Drinking Water Act next year.
Every day we open the newspapers to read about the health concerns of families of Washington, D.C. and members in Washington, D.C. as they deal with excessive levels of lead in their drinking water.
Each of us has heard from our local communities about the urgent need to upgrade our Nation's aging water infrastructure. There is an unquestionable need in all of our States for additional resources to ensure compliance with drinking water standards and make critical infrastructure improvements.
Among the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act that have expired is the State Revolving Loan Fund, which funds critical water infrastructure and compliance needs throughout our country. President Bush's budget requested only $850 million for this critical program, $150 million less than the level authorized by the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments. If we authorized and fully funded that provision, each of our States would receive an additional 1 to $15 million.
Local governments, States, drinking water suppliers and the EPA, all agree there is a tremendous resource gap which will continue to grow for drinking water infrastructure funding needed to protect the public health. This matter calls for corrective legislation. Of course, we support efforts to maintain the availability of safe drinking water in New York. But we should give all the expired provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act the same attention we are giving H.R. 2771 so that families throughout the country can have access to safe drinking water.
Mr. Speaker, we have the time here to name post offices and to commend athletic teams and organizations, and when we do get around to environmental concerns, we only take a teenie weenie bite at the apple. We should give the same amount of attention to the funding needs of all our environment programs. The President's FY 2005 budget cut $2.3 billion in funding for programs that protect public health and the environment. The FY 2005 budget for the EPA is 7.2 percent below the FY 2004 enacted level. Furthermore, the President does not reinstate the Superfund taxes in his FY 2005 budget, a move that would force taxpayers to foot the bill for hazardous cleanup and would deviate from the long-standing "polluter pays" principle of the Superfund.
The President does include, however, expected revenues from opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, to oil and gas exploration despite strong opposition in Congress to this plan.
We should also act to make sure people across the country have clean air to breathe. The Bush administration has severely loosened the requirements of the Clean Air Act. This administration's new source review regulations allows plants to indefinitely continue to put large amounts of dangerous pollutants in the air. This administration has also proposed mercury regulations that would allow as much as 3 times more mercury to release from power plants than would be released under current law.
We could spend our time passing legislation like the gentleman from California's (Mr. Waxman) Clean Smoke Stacks Act, H.R. 2042, to drastically curb emissions of sulpher dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and mercury from power plants.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the gentleman on the issue of lead in the drinking water, in fact, it was the Committee on Government Reform that held hearings on this. Also, this legislation we were considering today was, in fact, the first markup of the 108th Congress in the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials.
There are so many issues on the environmental agenda. Since we have so few opportunities to discuss those on the floor of the House since they are so rare to come before us, I wanted to just mention, bring to the attention of this body, that there is a very important third edition of the National Resource Defense Council book called "Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration's Assault on the Environment" which documents more than 150 assaults on our environmental safeguards between January 2003 and March 2004.
Among the most troubling Bush administration environmental actions include: In November 2003, the Bush administration proposed to legalize the release of inadequately treated sewage into waterways as long as it is diluted with treated sewage, a process the agency has euphemistically labeled "blending."
In April 2003, in a sweeping legal settlement with then-Utah governor and current EPA administrator Mike Leavitt, the administration renounced the government's authority to conduct wilderness inventories on public lands or to protect more areas for their wilderness values. The sudden settlement involved no public comment or open deliberations, and threatens to open millions of acres of wilderness public lands to drilling, mining, road building and other development.
The Bush administration has refused to regulate mercury through the same tough approach used for other hazardous air pollutants. The Clean Air Act requires the plants meet maximum achievable control technology standards for hazardous air pollutants. The Bush administration's proposal allows more mercury to be admitted, and gives industry decades longer to comply.
Furthermore, in January 2004, it was revealed that at least a dozen paragraphs of the Bush administration's mercury proposal were lifted, sometimes verbatim, from memos sent by a law firm that represents the utility industry.
Eric Schaeffer, the EPA's head of civil enforcement, handed in his resignation after President Bush announced the "Clear Skies" initiative. His letter of resignation said he was "tired of fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce."
In February, 2004, 63 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science, issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of "deliberately and systematically" distorting scientific fact and misleading the public in order to further its own partisan political objectives.
In a damning report, the scientists detailed numerous examples of the administration's abuse of science, censoring government studies, gagging agency scientists, refusing to confer with or ignoring independent experts, appointing unqualified or industry-connected individuals to Federal advisory committees, disbanding those government panels offering unwanted information, and misinterpreting information to fit predetermined policy objectives.
Having said all that, I would like to say that I think H.R. 2771, limited though it is, is an important step in providing clean, safe drinking water in New York City.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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