Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 1262, Water Quality Investment Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
It's wonderful to see such strong words of support from both sides of the aisle for this important piece of legislation.
I rise today in support of this rule and ask my colleagues to join me and pass the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009. I would like to thank Chairman Oberstar and the members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for bringing forward this legislation, which will protect clean water for Americans.
Clean water is essential to America's urban and rural communities. With this legislation, our cities will be able to take a comprehensive approach to water and wastewater management. It combines green and traditional methods to create a sustainable infrastructure that provides clean drinking water and leverages our precious natural resources to meet the demands of growth.
For agricultural uses, the advancements in water storage and treatment will provide reliable, clean water supplies that are good for the economic stability of our rural economies and improve the quality of our food supply, keeping Americans healthy. In these difficult economic times, the infrastructure improvements made possible through this legislation will create jobs and reduce costs for municipal governments. I ask my colleagues to invest in clean, reliable water resources for all Americans by supporting this rule and voting for the Water Quality Investment Act.
This will also address the growing needs for improvements in our water treatment systems. Several sectors of our economy will benefit from the improvements in this bill. The Nation's farmers, fishermen, manufacturing, and tourism industries rely on clean water that carry out our economic activities that contribute more than $300 billion to our economy each year. Our wastewater infrastructure is badly in need of the investment that this bill provides, Mr. Speaker, especially the $13.8 billion in Federal grants that capitalize the Clean Water State Revolving Funds. States can use that money to repair and build wastewater treatment plants and pipes.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, without continued improvements in wastewater treatment infrastructure, future population growth will erode away many of the important achievements of the Clean Water Act. Without the sort of improvements that this bill, this bipartisan bill, includes, EPA projects that by 2016 waster water treatment plants nationwide may discharge pollutants into U.S. waters at levels similar to those in the mid 1970s.
Mr. Speaker, this bill allows us to move forward rather than backward with regard to making sure that America's water supply is clean and safe. By requiring that workers on projects funded by the Clean Water State Revolving Funds be paid local prevailing wages, this bill promotes the payment of fair wages, as my colleague from Michigan pointed out on the other side of the aisle. This is important, both for its stimulative effect as well as being a future investment in our country.
The EPA reported in 2002 that pollution is impairing the use of 91 percent of the shoreline of the Great Lakes and 99 percent of Great Lakes open water. By authorizing $750 million for cleanup of the Great Lakes, this bill will improve opportunities for fishing, swimming, boating, agriculture, industry, and shipping for the 40 million people in one of the hardest-hit areas of our country in the recession who live in the Great Lakes Basin.
The vast majority of the provisions of this bill were contained in five bills that were passed in the House in the 110th Congress, most of them with broad bipartisan support, and it passed the committee by a voice vote. The provisions in this bill are similar. By reinstating the applicability of the Buy American Act for the construction of projects funded, we can ensure that our money will be spent here and that the infrastructure expenditures will have the greatest possible benefit for the American people and the American economy.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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