Although I am not a member of this subcommittee, I appreciate having the opportunity to participate in this morning's hearing. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, to address the incredible unmet water and wastewater infrastructure needs of our nation.
The state of our nation's water and wastewater infrastructure has been a long-standing concern of mine. It is an issue that I have been involved with as County Commissioner, State Legislator, Mayor, Governor, and now U.S. Senator. As Mayor of Cleveland, for instance, I saw rates increase dramatically to deal with the City's dual water infrastructure problems: drinking water and wastewater treatment. Currently, Ohio's water infrastructure needs are estimated at $12.4 billion: that's $5 billion for drinking water and $7.4 billion for wastewater.
We are now faced with a rumbling of a rebellion across the nation as communities struggle to deal with aging infrastructure, growth, and increasing federal water quality requirements. Many communities face the realization that they will have to obtain the revenues to conduct these costly overhauls locally.
Of course, the general public considers rate increases as they do taxes. And with the reaction to the dramatic rise in energy costs and other necessities such as health care, it's easy to understand why the public is concerned with increasing water and sewer rates.
As Governor, I worked with the National Governors Association to identify unfunded mandates our states and local communities are burdened with. Water infrastructure is no exception. In December of last year and earlier this month, I conducted two meetings in Ohio with several Ohio communities to discuss the extent of their water infrastructure needs and how federal water quality requirements affect their ability to meet those needs.
The folks dealing with the problem at the local level are being mandated to fulfill a whole host of federal requirements, many of which appear to them to defy common sense and can't be justified through cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, and good, sound science. With increasing requirements, these communities can't do it by themselves.
Because of my frustration with unfunded mandates, I have been working towards improving the condition of our nation's water infrastructure and helping communities cope with the high costs of compliance. That is why I reintroduced legislation earlier this year that would reauthorize the highly successful, but undercapitalized Clean Water State Revolving Loan (SRF) program. My bill, the Clean Water Infrastructure Financing Act of 2001, S. 252, would authorize $3 billion per year over 5 years for a total of $15 billion.
In addition, one of the bills I pushed especially hard last year was the Wet Weather Quality Act of 2000 (H.R. 828). This bill, which was enacted as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December, created a $1.5 billion grant program to help localities deal with CSO and SSO problems. Now we will need to ensure that we have the first installment of $750 million to carry-out this program as Congress addresses this country's priorities.
In the longer term, we may need a larger program to close the gap in water infrastructure investment. I don't know what dollar amount Congress can ultimately approve, but I am in favor of talking about the costs incurred by localities as a result of actions taken by the federal government that is the unfunded mandates that are passed on by Washington and seeing what we can do to alleviate the situation.
Towards that goal, I have asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct a study on the unmet infrastructure needs of our nation in order to get a better handle on exactly what needs we are facing. This includes such items as: highways, mass transit, airports, drinking water supply and wastewater treatment, public buildings, water resources (flood control and navigation) and hydropower generating facilities.
For each infrastructure area, the GAO will look at how these need estimates are developed and how they are utilized. The GAO will also identify good and bad examples of such estimates and where there is room for improvement.
I would like to get a sense from today's witnesses of what you are asked to do and what you need from us to get the job done. Does what the federal government is asking you to do make sense? For example, the City of Mansfield, Ohio faces rate increases of up to 300 percent to improve the quality of wet weather overflows that is already at or better than the water quality standards of the receiving stream.
If federal regulations do make sense, do your state environmental agencies and local governments have the capacity to implement them? Finally, how are you going to pay for all we ask?
Again, thank you. I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses and their responses to any questions that may follow.