Statement of Senator Baucus
Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works
Hearing on S. 1961, the Water Investment Act,
S. 252, S. 285
February 26, 2002
Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this important hearing today on the
growing water and wastewater infrastructure needs in this country. I would first like compliment our Chairman
and Ranking Member, and Senators Graham and Crapo for working so diligently to
produce a bi-partisan water investment bill, S. 1961, that we will hear about
today. This bill is an important first
step in the process of dealing with the critical issue of how the federal
government can best help local water systems provide clean and safe water for
their communities.
I have spent a lot of time with these issues in the past, particularly
during the development of the Safe Drinking Water Amendments of 1996. We worked hard to produce legislation that
would relieve local water systems of unnecessary regulatory burdens, while
ensuring that those water systems had the flexibility and the resources they
needed to provide their customers with clean water.
I worked hard to protect the interests of small and rural water systems
in that bill. Small systems cannot
spread their costs of complying with state and federal regulations among a
large number of ratepayers. This dynamic
hasn’t changed, and I=m afraid it will become more of an issue as new
regulations come online. In my State of
Montana, we have over 900 separate drinking water systems. Almost all of them serve fewer than 10,000
people. I’ve been told some 60 to 70
percent of the water systems in Montana that receive funding through the Clean
Water or Safe Drinking Water Revolving Loan Funds are considered small and/or
disadvantaged communities. Some of
them, like the area around Three Forks, Montana, have significant problems with
arsenic.
I
want to make sure that, as we move forward with water investment legislation,
these small systems will again be given the resources and the flexibility they
need to protect public health and the environment, without being subject to
unnecessary or undue regulatory burdens.
The operators of these systems are trying to provide a basic public
service to their neighbors. I don=t
want us to fall into the trap that led us to the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act
Amendments, where we unfortunately required systems, States, and the EPA to do
way too much, to dilute their resources pursuing a lot of different efforts,
instead of concentrating on the most egregious contaminants and problems, and
focusing priorities on the what a system should be doing to make its water as
pure as can be for the consumers. In a tight budget situation, this is even
more important than ever.
That
said, I support the increased authorization levels in S. 1916 for both the Safe
Drinking Water and the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Funds. I think this Committee can send a strong
message that clean water is a top priority, and that we in Congress must make
the necessary investments in the nation’s water and wastewater infrastructure
to protect basic public health and environmental needs. Few things are as important as clean and
safe drinking water for our citizens.
I
look forward to hearing the testimony of the witnesses today and working with
my colleagues on this important legislation.
Thank you again Mr. Chairman.