[Senate Hearing 112-953]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-953
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT'S UNREGULATED DRINKING
WATER CONTAMINANTS PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
JULY 12, 2011
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT'S UNREGULATED DRINKING
WATER CONTAMINANTS PROGRAM
S. Hrg. 112-953
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT'S UNREGULATED DRINKING
WATER CONTAMINANTS PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 12, 2011
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
23-819 PDF WASHINGTON : 2017
____________________________________________________________________
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
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Fax:(202) 512-2104 Mail:Stop IDCC,Washington,DC 20402-001
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman
MAX BAUCUS, Montana JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
TOM UDALL, New Mexico MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York
Bettina Poirier, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Ruth Van Mark, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
JULY 12, 2011
OPENING STATEMENTS
Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California... 1
Inhofe, James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma........ 3
Lautenberg, Frank, U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey..... 5
Boozman, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Arkansas...... 6
Cardin Hon. Benjamin, U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland.... 7
Sessions, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama,
prepared statement............................................. 177
WITNESSES
Trimble, David C., Director, Natural Resources And Environment,
Government Accountability Office............................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Boxer............................................ 36
Senator Inhofe........................................... 41
Perciasepe, Hon. Robert, Deputy Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency.............................................. 43
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Boxer............................................ 55
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 59
Senator Inhofe........................................... 63
Goldman, Lynn, Md, Mph, American Public Health Association, Dean
of the School of Public Health and Health Services and
Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the
George Washington University................................... 88
Prepared statement........................................... 90
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Boxer............................................ 97
Senator Inhofe........................................... 97
Araiza, Anthony, General Manager, West Valley Water District..... 98
Prepared statement........................................... 100
Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe........ 103
Joseph A. Cotruvo, Ph.D., President, Joseph Cotruvo and
Associates..................................................... 106
Prepared statement........................................... 108
Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe........ 118
Patierno, Steven R., Ph.D., Executive Director, George Washington
University Cancer Center....................................... 124
Prepared statement........................................... 137
Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe........ 161
Griffiths, Jeffrey, K., Md, MPH and TM, Chair, Drinking Water
Committee, Science Advisory Board of United States
Environmental Protection Agency, Professor of Public Health and
of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine............... 165
Prepared statement........................................... 167
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Peer Review Workshop for EPS's Draft Toxicological Review of
Hexavalent Chromium; Reviewer Post-Meeting Comments............ 179
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT'S UNREGULATED DRINKING
WATER CONTAMINANTS PROGRAM
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The full committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Barbara Boxer
(chairman of the full committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Lautenberg, Cardin,
Whitehouse, Udall, Boozman.
STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. Welcome, everybody. I have called this
hearing to examine one of the most important Federal public
health safeguards in our Country, the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Everyone has a right to clean and safe drinking water, and it
is essential to the health of our children and our families
that drinking water be free from harmful chemicals and
pollutants.
In order to ensure that enough is being done to protect our
Nation from emerging contaminants, I, along with
Representatives Waxman and Markey, asked the GAO to investigate
the unregulated contaminant program. The report is being
released today. I want to thank the GAO, the Government
Accountability Office, for their work and welcome them here
today, along with our Deputy Administrative. We welcome both.
The GAO investigation addresses the stunning fact that the
EPA has not made a determination to regulate any new drinking
water contaminants, with one very recent exception. And that
failure to move goes back to 1996 when the law was last
amended. This law was signed by Gerald Ford, who made a very
eloquent statement about it. I think it is very important to
remember that our landmark laws are bipartisan in nature, and
why I think it is so important that we work across party.
This is what Gerald Ford said when he signed the Safe
Drinking Water Act: ``Nothing is more essential to the life of
every single American than clean air and pure food and safe
drinking water. There have been strong national programs to
improve the quality of our air and the purity of our food.'' He
said, ``This bill, the Safe Drinking Water Act, will provide us
with the protection we need for drinking water.''
And since I have mentioned Gerald Ford, I want to note the
passing of this incredible former First Lady, Betty Ford, who I
had the pleasure of meeting and following her career. I know I
speak for everybody when we send our deepest condolences. Her
life was a life that really impacted others because she had
courage to speak about things that a lot of people were fearful
to speak about, whether it was breast cancer or the challenges
facing society or addiction to drugs and alcohol. I just think
her kind of leadership, which she really did not seek the
spotlight, had a tremendous impact. I wanted to make that note.
So when we talk about this report and why it is so
important, I think the report is in the spirit of what Gerald
Ford said, that we expect to have safe drinking water. In order
to do that, we need to update our laws to make sure that we are
not allowing certain contaminants in the water. And the GAO is
very clear that EPA has to find what contaminants are dangerous
and get them out of the water.
In 1996, Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act and
directed EPA to use the best available science to create
drinking water safeguards that would protect the most
vulnerable, including infants, children and pregnant women. As
the GAO report shows, the development of new standards for
unregulated drinking water contaminants, such as perchlorate,
were derailed in a process that failed to use the best
available science.
We all say we want the best available science, Republicans,
Democrats. We can just decide something is bad for you because
it sound bad, has a scary name. We have to know the science
behind it. And the fact is, we haven't seen any action since
1996 with this recent exception of perchlorate, for which I am
very grateful. Because I have a bill with Senator Feinstein to
regulate perchlorate. But it shouldn't be necessary to go to
one contaminant at a time. The EPA has to act.
Scientific information has shown that certain emerging
contaminants in our drinking water, such as perchlorate and
chromium-6 could be harmful to children and families.
Perchlorate, which is used in rocket fuel, fireworks and road
flares, poses a threat to human health when found in drinking
water. It impairs the function of the thyroid gland, which
harms children's development and can result in decreased
learning capacity. EPA needs to have a process that vigorously
addresses these contaminants to help ensure the safety of our
water.
GAO's report lays out a transparent and accountable
framework that can help to ensure the EPA uses the best
available science when creating drinking water protections for
our communities and our families. Again, I am so glad that EPA
is here today. And they are going to tell us about the
implementation of the program. We are also going to hear GAO's
testimony on the agency's need to use science to ensure that
the Federal Government provides strong public health
protections against drinking water contaminants.
And with that, Senator Inhofe.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And let me tell
you, I appreciate your remarks about Betty Ford. I happened to
know her quite well. And you are right, she got into things,
talking about alcoholism and she probably accomplished more
than any other First Lady I can think of. They are celebrating
her life today.
I think everyone in this room agrees that providing safe,
clean, affordable drinking water is essential and should be a
national priority. At the cornerstone of the Safe Drinking
Water Act is the idea that we should be controlling those
substances that pose risks to public health. Unfortunately, the
system that EPA uses to determine health risks, the IRIS
system, the Integrated Risk Information System, has decades-
long issues in crafting risk assessments. The National Academy
of Sciences has recently pointed out that IRIS assessments have
suffered from lack of transparency and consistency and problems
with evaluating studies and the weight of evidence. These
problems continue to persist in the face of the NAS and
Congress repeatedly imploring EPA to correct these issues.
Without having a good foundation and sound science,
practices in all areas of EPA's regulatory system are
suffering, including drinking water. Unbiased, high quality
scientific analyses are important foundations for making
drinking water decisions. When the risk assessment that EPA is
producing are unable to maintain the highest possible standards
for scientific quality and integrity, every decision that
follows is called into question.
Senator Vitter and I are trying to get the EPA to explain
how they plan to address the systematic concerns with IRIS that
were raised by the recent NAS review of formaldehyde, a
chemical we have decades of experience and information to draw
upon. Now, if the IRIS review of a chemical that we have a
great history on is so fundamentally flawed, it is hard to
imagine how we will end up with good science on chemicals of
emerging concern. I am looking forward to hearing from the EPA
about how they plan to address these concerns.
As analytical techniques continue to improve, we are able
to detect constituents at increasingly lower levels. This ever-
increasing ability to detect will allow the numbers of
chemicals in our water to increase infinitely. However, it is
important that we do not associate any detection with risk. In
nearly every case, the extremely low levels that we are
detecting are well below the dosage that would affect public
health. To be perfectly clear, exposure does not mean there is
risk. This is just one more example of the importance of
getting robust science to guide our policy decisions to help
correctly communicate to the public what the risk associated
with a particular contaminant is.
It is no surprise that nearly half of Americans are
concerned about the quality of their drinking water when
headlines and talking points are filled with alarmist stories
of chemical detection with no information about what that means
specifically to their health.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to continue to tighten
drinking water standards and send drinking water down an aging
and failing infrastructure system. EPA estimates that just to
keep up with the current drinking water requirements over the
next 20 years, eligible drinking water systems will need over
$300 billion in infrastructure investment. We need to improve
our Nation's drinking water facilities by authorizing and
reauthorizing the State Revolving Loan Fund programs, both for
drinking water as well as for wastewater.
I was extremely disappointed by EPA's cuts of almost $950
million to the SRF program. By making these cuts, EPA is
increasing funding mandates on water providers throughout the
Country. We can't expect our communities to continue to provide
safe drinking water if they don't have the resources to do it.
This is something I have been talking about for such a long
period of time. And I know my State of Oklahoma is not totally
different than other States. But we have a lot of communities
that just can't afford these things. When I was mayor of Tulsa,
I have to say that the biggest problems, and I know Bob
Perciasepe has heard me say this before, the biggest problems
facing our cities are really not prostitution and crime and
all, it is unfunded mandates. And that is something that we
have to be familiar with and have to address.
And finally, Madam Chairman, I would like to request that
the record of this hearing be kept open for two additional
weeks, so that both outside groups and our witnesses here today
have the opportunity to review the GAO report on unregulated
contaminants, which has been unavailable to the public until
now. So I think we may need to have the access to that, and
then have a comment period.
I am looking forward to hearing from the witnesses today,
especially Dr. Patierno, who will share his expertise in
chromium-6, something that is very interesting to me concerning
the problems that exist in my city of Norman, Oklahoma, Dr.
Cotruvo, who can share his lengthy public health and drinking
water experience, and Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, whom
we have gotten to know very well.
We are going to try to stay and maybe expedite this and get
it all done throughout the second panel. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:]
Statement of Senator James M. Inhofe, U.S. Senator
from the State of Oklahoma
Thank you, Madam Chairman, for taking the time today to
continue our discussions about Federal drinking water programs.
I know that everyone in this room agrees that providing clean,
safe, affordable drinking water is essential, and should be a
national priority.
At the cornerstone of the Safe Drinking Water Act is the
idea that we should be controlling those substances that pose
risks to public health. Unfortunately, the system that EPA uses
to determine health risks, the Integrated Risk Information
System (IRIS), has a decade's long issues in crafting risk
assessments. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has
recently pointed out that IRIS assessments have suffered from a
lack of transparency, inconsistency, and problems with
evaluating studies and the weight of evidence. These problems
continue to persist in the face of NAS and Congress repeatedly
imploring EPA to correct these issues. Without having a good
foundation and sound science practices, all areas of EPA's
regulatory system suffer, including drinking water.
Unbiased, high-quality, scientific analyses are important
foundations for making drinking water decisions. When the risk
assessments that EPA is producing are unable to maintain the
highest possible standards for scientific quality and
integrity, every decision that follows is called into question.
Sen. Vitter and I are trying to get EPA to explain how they
plan to address the systematic concerns with IRIS that were
raised in the recent NAS review of Formaldehyde, a chemical we
have decades of experience and information to draw upon. If the
IRIS review for a chemical that we have great history on is so
fundamentally flawed, it is hard to imagine how we will end up
with good science on chemicals of emerging concern. I am
looking forward to hearing from EPA about how they plan to
address these concerns soon.
As analytical techniques continue to improve, we are able
to detect constituents at increasingly lower levels. This ever
increasing ability to detect will allow the numbers of
chemicals in our water to increase infinitely. However, it is
important that we do not associate any detection with risk. In
nearly every case, the extremely low levels we are detecting
are well below the dosage that would affect public health. To
be perfectly clear, exposure does not mean there is risk. This
is just one more example of the importance of getting robust
science to guide our policy decisions and to help correctly
communicate to the public what the risk associated with a
particular contaminant is. It is no surprise that nearly half
of Americans are concerned about the quality of their drinking
water when headlines and talking points are filled with
alarmist stories of chemical detection with no information
about what that means to their health.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to continue to tighten
drinking water standards and send drinking water down an aging
and failing infrastructure system. EPA estimates that just to
keep up with the current drinking water requirements over the
next 20 years, eligible drinking water systems will need over
$300 billion in infrastructure investments. We need to improve
our nation's drinking water facilities by reauthorizing the
State Revolving Loan Fund programs, both for drinking water and
waste water.
I was extremely disappointed by EPA's cuts of almost $950
million to the SRF program. By making these cuts, EPA is
increasing unfunded mandates on water providers throughout the
country. We cannot expect our communities to continue to
provide safe drinking water if they do not have the resources
to meet their infrastructure needs. We have the responsibility
to ensure clean, safe, and affordable water for our country by
providing the necessary resources to our states and local
governments.
Finally, Madam Chairman, I would like to request that the
record for this hearing be kept open for 2 weeks, so that both
outside groups and our witnesses here today, have the
opportunity to review this GAO report on Unregulated
Contaminants, which has been unavailable to the public until
now, and provide a more robust understanding of the
recommendations and suggestions for the committee record.
I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today,
especially Dr. Patierno, who will share his expertise in
chromium-6, something of interest to me and to my constituents
in Norman, OK, Dr. Cotruvo, who can share his lengthy public
health and drinking water experience, and Deputy Administrator
Perciasepe. Thank you.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much. And without objection, we
will keep the record open for 2 weeks so everyone can avail
themselves of the report and ask questions of the GAO.
Senator Lautenberg, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK LAUTENBERG,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman,
for holding this hearing.
Clean water is as fundamental to our health as breathing
clean air. And since the Safe Drinking Water Act came about 37
years ago, we have made significant progress making sure the
Nation's water supply is clean and safe. But we still have a
lot of work to do.
Research shows that there are more than 140 chemicals in
our drinking water that EPA does not regulate. In some parts of
the Country, these chemicals include gasoline additives and
pesticides. Other States, natural gas drillers inject diesel
fuel and chemicals into the ground as part of the now more
popular fracking process, and EPA is powerless to do anything
about it because of a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act
that I and others on this Committee have fought to repeal.
In many ways, we are still being haunted by the neglect of
the prior Administration, which repeatedly failed to set limits
and strengthen regulations on pollution in the Nation's water
supply. During the Bush years, each and every time that the EPA
was given an opportunity to improve water safety, the agency
chose not to act. Today, we are going to hear the results of a
new Government Accountability Office investigation that sheds
additional light on this negligence and misplaced priorities.
GAO's investigation shows how much the Bush administration
looked the other way, instead of regulating dangerous chemicals
like perchlorate, a toxic substance found in rocket fuel.
Instead of letting agency scientists and the law drive
regulatory decisions, political appointees, acting and meeting
in secret, pushed the agency away from putting limits on
perchlorate. Fortunately, under President Obama, EPA is moving
in the right direction once again working on the public's
behalf.
The agency is taking steps to set new limits on chemicals
in our drinking water and doing more to determine the impact of
natural gas drilling on our Country's water supply. The EPA is
making good use of the tools under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
But the law itself limits EPA's ability to protect the public's
right to know. The Safe Drinking Water Act only allows EPA to
regulate temporary monitoring of a small group of unregulated
contaminants. So the public has no idea that they might be
drinking water laden with unregulated contaminants like flame
retardants, gasoline additives or other toxics.
Twenty-five years ago, I authored the Right to Know law on
toxic chemical releases to make sure that people know about
potentially hazardous substances in their communities. The
public also has a right to know what is in their water. That is
why I introduced the Drinking Water Right to Know Act. My bill
would require a targeted increase in monitoring for unregulated
pollutants that could be hazardous.
In addition, the bill would require EPA to make information
on contaminants in drinking water more readily available online
and in plain English. More information on contaminants will
empower citizens and help government to make better decisions
on pollutants in the water supply.
So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how
we can work together to make sure that every person has clean,
safe water to drink when they turn on the tap. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
Senator Boozman.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS
Senator Boozman. I will have a statement for the record.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Boozman was not
submitted at time of print.]
Senator Boxer. Thank you.
Senator Cardin.
STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN CARDIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Senator Cardin. Madam Chairman, I am going to put my full
statement in the record, and I do want to welcome our
witnesses. I just want to underscore a point that has been
said, and that is Americans expect when they turn their taps on
they are going to get clean water. And we have to make sure
that in fact becomes, maintains reality.
The way that unregulated contaminants are handled raises
concern. We know we review them every 5 years, but to move it
to regulation has been extremely cumbersome and difficult. Some
of our States have acted because the Federal Government has not
been able to act. I am not sure that is the substitute for the
Federal Government acting. To me, this is one of our principal
responsibilities, to make sure that we have safe and clean
water for the people of this Nation.
I look forward to this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Senator Cardin follows:]
Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, U.S. Senator
from the State of Maryland
Madame Chairman, thank you.
Readily available, safe drinking water is an expectation
most people in our Nation have come to take for granted.
The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 contain a
provision that requires the EPA to evaluate chemicals in our
drinking water and to regulate them as necessary. In its recent
preliminary regulatory determination, however, the EPA has
decided that it will NOT regulate 11 new chemicals found in our
Nation's tap water.
One such contaminant is perchlorate--a chemical found in
fireworks, explosives, and rocket motors. The chemical has been
found in the drinking water of at least 35 states and the
District of Columbia. Perchlorate has been found in breast
milk.
It is known that perchlorate affects the ability of the
thyroid gland to take up iodine. Iodine is needed to make
thyroid hormones that regulate many body functions after they
are released into the blood. Children are more likely to be
affected by perchlorate than adults because thyroid hormones
are essential for normal growth and development.
Despite the known science on the hazards of perchlorate,
EPA has failed to establish a safety standard for perchlorate
in drinking water.
Lacking Federal leadership, several states, including
Maryland have adopted their own standards for perchlorate in
drinking water. These standards range from 2 parts-per-billion
in Massachusetts to 6 parts-per-billion in California. In 2002,
my State of Maryland established a 1 ppb advisory level for
perchlorate. There are two communities in Maryland that
exceeded this advisory level and have since installed treatment
facilities: the city of Aberdeen in Harford County and the
Sherwood Forest Mobile Home Park in Cecil County.
Given the disparities in the advisory levels and standards
for perchlorate from one State to another, our constituents may
be confused and concerned that there is no National standard
for perchlorate in their water given the risks, in particular
to pregnant mothers and young children, of low-level exposure
to perchlorate.
My concerns about perchlorate, particularly the EPA's
failure to provide a regulation requiring monitoring of and
notification for perchlorate in drinking water have led me to
co-sponsor two bills that you, Madame Chairman have offered: S.
24, the ``Perchlorate Monitoring and Right-to-Know Act of
2007'' and S. 150. the ``Protecting Pregnant Women and Children
From Perchlorate Act of 2007''
A similar lack of action has existed for trichloroethylene
or TCE: Even after a draft EPA Risk Assessment found that TCE
was as much as 40 times more carcinogenic than previously
thought, rather than setting a more protective standard for TCE
in drinking water, the EPA called for more study.
Given the EPA's recent history of not particularly timely
development of new regulations, I am concerned that it may be
several years before this new information might be incorporated
into new regulatory standards.
Existing scientific studies strongly suggest that the EPA
should be acting expeditiously on developing regulations to
limit exposure to perchlorate and TCE. It is unfortunate, that
as with other environmental matters, the EPA has dragged its
feet when the health of our Nation is at risk.
I look forward to the testimony from today's witnesses in
helping to clarify this issue. There is scientific
justification for the EPA to act quickly on these chemicals in
our drinking water. If EPA cannot act, we must. Our country
deserves better.
Thank you Madame Chairman.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
We will now turn to our panel. I think we are going to hear
from the Government Accountability Office first, so that Hon.
Deputy Administrator can respond to their findings. So Mr.
Trimble, we welcome you and we thank you for all your heard
work. We look forward to your presentation. You can summarize
in 5 minutes, and if we have further questions, we will ask
them.
STATEMENT OF DAVID C. TRIMBLE, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Trimble. I am pleased to be here today to discuss our
report being released today on EPA's program for regulating
additional drinking water contaminants. We evaluated EPA's
implementation of the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking
Water Act, and reviewed the process and findings EPA used in
making its 2008 preliminary decision to not regulate
perchlorate.
We found that systemic limitations in EPA's implementation
of the requirements for determining whether additional drinking
water contaminants warrant regulation have impeded the agency's
process in assuring the public of safe drinking water. These
limitations start with the contaminants that EPA chooses to
assess for regulation. Specifically, EPA's selection of
contaminants for regulatory determination in 2003 and 2008 was
driven by data availability, not consideration of greatest
public health concern, as specified in the statute. In fact, an
EPA official described the agency's regulatory determinations
as addressing the low-hanging fruit.
Moreover, EPA has not been effective in obtaining
occurrence of health effects data on contaminants, both of
which are essential for regulatory determination. This program
to test drinking water for unregulated contaminants has not
tested as many contaminants as it could have. Also, in many
cases, the testing methods have not been sufficiently robust to
detect the contaminants at the level of public health concern,
reducing the credibility of EPA's determinations. Information
on the health effects of contaminants has also lagged due to
longstanding challenges in the IRIS program and coordination
issues.
Importantly, EPA has not developed regulations, policies or
guidance for interpreting the amendments' broad statutory
criteria for selecting contaminants and making decisions on
them. In the absence of guidance, EPA has been informally
applying a policy that contaminants need to occur in drinking
water on a national scale to warrant regulation.
However, a national occurrence threshold is not required by
the Safe Drinking Water Act, which in fact provides relief to
public water systems for monitoring when a contaminant occurs
in certain areas but not in others. We have concerns about EPA
implementing a critical policy which interprets the Act and has
important implications for the safety of public drinking water
when this policy has neither been defined nor subjected to
public review.
Also, the credibility of some of the EPA's regulatory
determinations is limited by a lack of transparency, clarity
and consistency. For example, EPA states unequivocally in its
regulatory determination support document that there is no data
to indicate children are more sensitive to manganese than
adults, but in its health effects support document discusses
studies that do associate manganese in drinking water with
learning disabilities in children. Our report details numerous
other limitations that reduce the credibility of EPA's
regulatory determinations, including making determinations on
the basis of outdated and incomplete occurrence data, and the
Office of Water's lack of protocol and methods for assessing
drinking water health risks for children and other sensitive
sub-populations, 15 years after the 1996 amendments required
EPA to consider effects on such populations.
Regarding perchlorate, we found that the process and
analyses EPA relied on to support its preliminary determination
to not regulate were atypical, lacked transparency and limited
the agency's independence in developing and communicating its
scientific findings. While EPA's 2011 decision to regulate
perchlorate included an analysis on the potential health impact
on children, addressing key shortcomings in the 2008 decision,
it is not clear at this time whether EPA has committed to do
such analyses in the future.
We made 17 recommendations to support the development of
transparent, clear and consistent regulatory determinations. An
overarching recommendation is that EPA develop policies and
guidance clearly articulating the agency's interpretation of
the Act's statutory criteria as well as eight additional
recommendations identifying specific components of this
guidance.
EPA's response to this recommendation was that it was not
practical to establish policies or guidance, citing various
complexities. However, the complexities cited would argue for
rather than against the need to develop guidance for staff in
applying the criteria.
EPA also said it did not support developing policies or
guidance because under the statutory criteria, it is the
Administrator's judgment as to whether regulation presents a
meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction after
considering information presented by agency staff. The
statutory criteria are so broadly stated that they could
potentially be interpreted to support regulating all the
contaminants on the candidate list, some of them or none of
them.
It is precisely for these reasons that we believe it is
essential for EPA staff to have sufficient guidance on applying
the criteria consistently and transparently, so that the
Administrator's judgment can be based on sound and consistent
information. Without such guidance, the basis for EPA's
determinations and the quality of their support can fluctuate
over time as a result of, among other reasons, changes in
agency leadership and staff.
In large measure, EPA's response to our recommendations
essentially endorses conducting business as usual, a response
that does not acknowledge the scope and significance of the
implementation limitations we identified.
I would be happy to respond to any questions that you or
other members of the Committee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Trimble follows:]
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Senator Boxer. Thank you very much for your hard work.
And now it is time to hear from the EPA, and Mr.
Perciasepe, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT PERCIASEPE, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR,
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Mr. Perciasepe. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me today,
Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe and members of the
Committee here today to discuss EPA's drinking water program.
Making sure that all Americans have water that is safe to
drink is one of the fundamental elements of EPA's mission. I
appreciate the Committee's and the Government Accountability
Office's attention to the matter of the Safe Drinking Water
Act. While EPA, under the leadership of Administrator Jackson,
has made some key strides with the drinking water program,
there is always room for improvement, and the GAO report makes
some critical recommendations which we welcome.
Strong science and the law are the foundation of our
decisionmaking at EPA. We agree with GAO that our approach to
drinking water regulation must be transparent, consistent,
clear and driven by the need to protect public health. In 1996,
Congress updated the Safe Drinking Water Act to improve the way
we decide when a contaminant needs to be regulated. The new
process was designed to assure that future standards focus on
public health protection and are based on the best available
science.
Over the years, we have sought advice from a number of
independent organizations on how to achieve this goal,
including the National Academy of Sciences, the Science
Advisory Board, and the National Drinking Water Advisory
Council. Recommendations from these groups have contributed to
a strong foundation for our program, and we continue to build
on those past efforts. The draft GAO report makes it clear we
have more work to do.
Specifically, GAO provides recommendations about developing
policies to interpret the broad statutory criteria that the
Safe Drinking Water Act outline for making regulatory
determinations. It is crucial that these criteria are
transparent and protect vulnerable populations, particularly
children. To achieve these goals, I have asked the Office of
Water to consult with an independent panel of scientists on the
process EPA uses.
Specifically, they will consider how we evaluate
contaminants against the criteria, how will we use the best
available science to make a decision and how will we assess the
greatest public health risk and how to consider vulnerable
populations, especially children. We will make our regulatory
determination process publicly available and we will review the
process every 5 years as we conduct the regulatory
determination cycle.
Currently, we are in our third cycle of evaluating
unregulated contaminants. In implementing this process, we are
applying the lessons learned from the previous iterations. Our
recent actions are consistent with many of GAO's
recommendations. To ensure that we are best protecting public
health, GAO recommends that EPA develop criteria to identify
contaminants that pose the greatest risk. In our most recent
contaminant candidate list, EPA used a significantly improved
process. We cast a wide net to identify possible contaminants.
And from this universe of more than 7,000 candidates, we
narrowed the list down to 116 that represent the greatest risk.
The multi-step process was science-based and informed by the
public and independent science experts. All of the supporting
information is available to the public. From within this list,
we have identified the contaminants with enough data to make a
decision in this cycle, and we are focusing our decision on
those with the greatest public health concern.
In order to have the occurrence data we need to make good
decisions, GAO recommends that we improve our unregulated
contaminants monitoring program. We agree with the GAO's
recommendations . In March, we proposed our most recent list of
contaminants for monitoring and we are taking full advantage of
the statutory authority to test for 30 contaminants. We also
proposed minimum reporting limits that are much lower than have
been required in the past, making the data obtained more
useful.
This Administration also recognizes that we need to change
the paradigm for determining and developing drinking water
regulations to protect public health. We are implementing the
drinking water strategy announced by the Administrator last
year. In particular, we have established a focus on regulating
multiple contaminants as a single group. By doing so, we can
achieve public health protection more expeditiously and in a
way that is more cost-effective for water utilities to
implement.
We are also focusing on fostering innovative drinking water
technology, so that drinking water treatment is available and
affordable. We are leveraging the authorities of multiple
statutes to protect drinking water sources from contamination.
In closing, Madam Chairman, protecting the resource of
clean, safe water is one of EPA's highest priorities. We are
committed to continually improving our methods and I look
forward to working with this Committee and the GAO in our
efforts to best protect the American people.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Perciasepe follows:]
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Senator Boxer. I want to thank you very much, and say I
think your response to this report is refreshing, that you are
looking at it and embrace the notion of transparency, which is
critical, science is critical.
In September 2010, EPA released a draft scientific
assessment that found that chromium-6 in drinking water is
``likely to be a carcinogenic to humans.'' The agency said it
expects to finish this assessment in 2011. Can you give us the
date when you will complete this assessment?
Mr. Perciasepe. That assessment we did last year was
submitted for peer review. We just received a response from the
peer reviewers and we are reviewing that. I would still think,
depending on what depth we may need to go into, and I have to
hedge the exact date here a little bit, based on the fact that
we have not yet reviewed all the advice we got from the peer
review. I think we are still on track to finish before the end
of the year.
Senator Boxer. Good. I am going to assume that unless I
hear otherwise. We have had our problems with chromium-6. I am
really glad that you moved forward on it.
In February 2011, Administrator Jackson reversed a Bush
administration decision not to regulate perchlorate with an
announcement that EPA would move forward to develop a drinking
water standard. I ask unanimous consent to place in the record
comments from California urging you on in that regard.
[The referenced information follows.]
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Senator Boxer. Perchlorate is a toxic contaminant that can
harm children's development. I strongly support Administrator
Jackson's decision. Could you tell me if EPA is moving forward
with the process of developing a drinking water standard for
perchlorate and can you assure me the agency will continue to
use the best available science in crafting this standard?
Mr. Perciasepe. Yes, I can assure you on both counts, Madam
Chairman. We are moving ahead on the process that is initiated
by making the regulatory determination. And of course, we are
going to be looking at all the best available science, as we
had it, to make the right determination and as we will continue
to improve the science that is available as we go through the
regulatory process.
Senator Boxer. OK. Let me just say, given, I think, the
criticisms that have come forward from the GAO, and the reality
that so little has been done, the fact that you are moving on
two contaminants out of so many, at least it is a start. So I
am going to be watching very carefully to make sure that we
don't get caught up in politics or anything else. This is about
safety for our people. And we need to know. So I am going to be
following those very, very closely.
Deputy Administrator, the GAO found that ``EPA does not
have criteria for identifying contaminants of greatest public
health concern.'' They recommended that EPA develop ``criteria
to identify contaminants that pose the greatest health risks.''
Will EPA develop such criteria, in order to determine which
drinking water contaminants should be regulated, and ensure
that the criteria are used in a transparent and accountable
process?
Mr. Perciasepe. What I mentioned in my opening statement is
that EPA, it is sort of, things are going on in parallel here.
In addition to the review that GAO has done, which has provided
us meaningful input and good recommendations on transparency,
we have also been in the process of trying to make those
improvements at the same time. It is sort of, if you play ice
hockey, it is sort of like changing the line on the fly, as
they call it.
Senator Boxer. Oh, wait a minute, that is my husband's
domain. He loves ice hockey.
Mr. Perciasepe. So you are familiar with that concept.
Senator Boxer. I can barely follow the puck, but I think it
is exciting. But could you say what you said again, so I can
ask him when I get home? Say it again, I am serious.
Mr. Perciasepe. Changing the line on the fly.
Senator Boxer. Changing the line on the fly. Thank you. I
will check it out with him when I get home.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Perciasepe. I apologize for bringing a sports analogy
in here.
But the point being that while GAO is looking at what we
have done in the past, we are preparing the next round of the
candidate contaminant list. And in doing that process, we have
tremendously expanded this number of sources of science and
data that we have looked at. And as I mentioned, we had almost
7,500 different contaminants we look at. I am doing this,
because it is sort of like the top of a funnel. And as you go
down the funnel to what you might recommend for a regulatory
determination at the bottom, we are building a very specific
process that starts with the 7,000, looks at what we know about
the severity of their health impacts, impacts on children or
sensitive populations, occurrence information.
And we are moving down that list. We have publicly produced
a document. We have had public hearings on it, about how we
went from the 7,500 down to a smaller number. And now what we
are focusing on 116 of them, each step of the way we have laid
out a deliberate process.
Senator Boxer. OK, just to cut through, and I am going to
give myself one more minute and give it to everybody else, the
answer is yes?
Mr. Perciasepe. Yes.
Senator Boxer. The EPA is going to develop these criteria?
Mr. Perciasepe. Yes.
Senator Boxer. And you are going to make it public, and it
will be transparent.
Mr. Perciasepe. And we are building it off of this.
Senator Boxer. OK. So my last question, and then I have a
bunch I am going to ask you for in writing that are very
important to me, the GAO found that 17 contaminants that have
been on all three of EPA's lists of priority drinking water
contaminants since 1998, and here we are, a long way from that,
including RDX, or royal demolition explosive, which EPA has
classified as a possible human carcinogen. The GAO raised
concern with the potential lack of information that EPA has on
some of these contaminants. We are talking about now a narrow
list of 17 that have appeared on all these lists since 1998.
Will you agree to have EPA brief my staff on the status of
the agency's information collection analysis activities for
each of those 17 contaminants? And also at that time describe
when EPA expects to consider these contaminants for a
regulatory determination?
Mr. Perciasepe. Yes, of course. And I could add, I know
that we are short on time, but a number of, a significant
number of those are now on the final list that we are looking
at in the current process. And a number of the other ones have
been put on the unregulated contaminant monitoring list that
David brought up in his testimony that we have expanded that
list and will now get more data on them. So we are moving on
pretty much all of those 17.
Senator Boxer. Thank you, and I will get you all these
other questions I have, and turn to Senator Inhofe for 6
minutes.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And I would hope
in the future, Mr. Administrator, if you are going to use a
sports analogy, for my benefit, use either football or
baseball, so we would understand.
[Laughter.]
Senator Boxer. Or soccer is good.
Mr. Perciasepe. Well, we have a spiritual soccer event
earlier in the week.
Senator Inhofe. It could have been that the Chairman asked
this question during her first minute, because I was distracted
during that time. But I would like to know if there is anything
further you could say on how the EPA is going to address the
concerns that were raised by the NAS formaldehyde report,
specifically the systemic concerns raised by the IRIS risk
assessment process.
Mr. Perciasepe. In 2009, Administrator Jackson set in
motion a number of improvements to the IRIS program to begin
with. As you pointed out, maybe 10 years, where things had been
allowed to perhaps lag for a while. So one of the things we did
is improve some of the elements of the process. We have
increased resources for it. And today our Assistant
Administrator for the Office of Research and Development, Paul
Anastas, is going to be announcing a next round of improvements
to the IRIS process. And many of those improvements are on that
same continuum we have been on now for a couple of years, and I
think are very responsive to the advice we have gotten and that
we appreciate also from the National Academy of Sciences.
So I am optimistic, Senator, that we are moving on that
proper continuum to make sure that very critical, and I think
you said it as well as anybody could in your opening statement,
how important that IRIS process is to our program.
Senator Inhofe. OK, you are on that. As I said also in my
opening statement, and you have heard me talk about this
before, the concern that I have from my background as mayor of
a major city in terms of the unfunded mandates. And again, I
know other States have problems, too. I think Oklahoma
certainly has great problems in our small communities.
Now, it is my understanding that the EPA section 319
program does help States in their implementation. Is this
correct, in some of these programs?
Mr. Perciasepe. I am not completely familiar with that
question.
Senator Inhofe. All right. Well, it is the EPA section 319
program. It does provide funds for some States and local
entities to comply with some of these mandates. Is that
correct?
Mr. Perciasepe. I think that--I am not familiar with 319. I
probably know all the programs, but I don't know them by their
numbers.
Senator Inhofe. OK, well, I was given the information that
some $27 million was transferred from that program to the
program that is sent to China and other countries.
Mr. Perciasepe. I am in the wrong law. It is in the Clean
Water Act. Section 319 is in the Clean Water Act. I am familiar
with that. That allows non-point source programs and State
efforts on non-point source programs that can be used to do
both source water protection and perhaps even wellhead
protection in the proper context.
Senator Inhofe. Well, I think it is significant to bring up
this point. Because you will remember, although you weren't in
your current position, when Republicans were the majority and I
chaired this Committee, I was concerned that people didn't have
access to where a lot of the money was going from the EPA, from
the Environmental Protection Agency. And so we set up a data
base. And this has been pretty successful. And just the other
day, Chairman Upton, of a comparable committee over there in
the House, was talking about the $718,000 that went to China's
EPA to assist with control of air emissions. And it goes on to
talk about some of the other countries.
I just found this to be kind of mind-boggling that would
take place. Is that incorrect? Because I know this would be the
Assistant Administrator for International Affairs. But that
person does answer to you.
Mr. Perciasepe. I will have to look into that, Senator. I
don't have any direct information at this particular moment on
financial----
Senator Inhofe. OK, rather than just take it for the
record, if you don't mind calling me back to see if I'm wrong
in this. Because if I'm wrong and if Congressman Upton is
wrong, we are doing a disservice by talking about this.
Mr. Perciasepe. I will make sure we get back to your office
today.
Senator Inhofe. That is all I could ask for.
And I would say to you, Mr. Trimble, in your analysis, does
EPA have all the statutory authority that they need to regulate
contaminants of concern?
Mr. Trimble. Sir, in our report and our recommendations,
the deficiencies or the problems and the systemic problems we
found were of a nature that we felt could be addressed strictly
within the current authority. That is why our recommendations
are to EPA, if we don't have a consideration for changing the
statute, we believe that the EPA can take action quickly under
existing authorities to define its policies and establish
guidance, to interpret the statutes and implement them in such
a way that it would be clear, consistent and provide a better
product at the end of the day.
Senator Inhofe. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Perciasepe, the New Jersey State legislature recently
passed a ban on hydraulic fracking in my home State. But
Pennsylvania and New York are moving ahead with fracking
activities that could affect New Jersey's water supply.
Now, there is currently a loophole we are all familiar with
in Federal law that exempts fracking operations from much of
the Safe Drinking Water Act requirements. How does this
loophole affect EPA's ability to prevent fracking contamination
in one State from affecting the health of people in another,
not unlike the winds that blow across our State from the west?
Mr. Perciasepe. Let me just say that on the movement of
water on the surface of the, when the water, when the fracking
fluids are used or whether there is produced water out of a
well, when the water comes to the surface, those are under the
jurisdiction, if they are discharged to waters of the United
States, those are under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water
Act. And there are requirements for how it would be pre-
treated, or there would be State requirements on how it is pre-
treated if it goes into a sewage treatment plant, or if it is
reinjected into the ground, that would be covered by the
underground injection and control program.
So on the surface, I think, Senator, the Clean Water Act
would apply. The exemption is the regulation of the injection
of the fracking fluids into the ground to conduct that
operation. Those are not regulated, or that action is not
regulated under the underground injection and control program,
which is in the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, a few months ago, I asked you
about the air quality impacts of natural gas drilling. And in
your testimony you said that natural gas drilling would lead to
``an increase in emissions of volatile organic compounds and
nitrogen oxide.'' But there was no offer of any concrete steps
that EPA is taking to reduce these emissions.
Is EPA taking any action now to address emissions from
natural gas drilling?
Mr. Perciasepe. I will mention two briefly, Senator. First,
just in the last several weeks, EPA, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and the Department of Interior signed an MOU on how
we would conduct air quality analyses on leasing programs,
either in the national forests or on the Bureau of Land
Management's land, which again, mostly is going to be out west.
But we have now a multi-agency agreement on how we will analyze
the air impacts and what requirements might be placed on the
leases that are put forward.
We just recently conducted that analysis on a lease that
the Department of Interior, through the Bureau of Land
Management, made in the Grand National Buttes in Utah. And
those requirements, and the company there was Anadarko, those
requirements are very progressive and forward-leaning. And the
company is moving forward in that.
Senator Lautenberg. When will we get something specific
there to move on this? The studies are being done.
Mr. Perciasepe. Right. So those requirements would be
placed on those leases, and they would have to meet those
standards. The second thing, though, that I want to mention, is
EPA is also working on what under the Clean Air Act is called
new source performance standards. So as a new well is produced
or developed, it would be required to reduce the amount of
volatile organic compounds that would be emitted while the well
development is being conducted.
So those proposals will be out later this year. And they
will be in many ways similar to what we are requiring companies
to do when they lease on Federal land.
Senator Lautenberg. The concerns are real. But the pace
seems fairly slow in doing something about it.
Mr. Perciasepe. I appreciate that very much.
Senator Lautenberg. In addition to individual pollutants in
drinking water, people are often exposed to multiple
contaminants. The interaction with each other can cause some
health effects. Mr. Trimble, how might EPA consider the health
effects of the combination of chemicals when they set drinking
water contaminant limits?
Mr. Trimble. I think that is an important issue. I think it
goes to the heart of our recommendations, which is that the EPA
needs to have guidance and policy and criteria to explain how
such issues are considered in their decisionmaking. For
example, when they make a decision, at the end of the day they
need to explain was it considered, how was it considered. If
they have a policy and it is an exception to that policy, they
need to transparently and clearly explain all the factors that
led them to the outcome that they arrived at.
So I think we don't, we are not a science agency, so we are
not making recommendations on how they should or shouldn't do
these things. But from our standpoint, you need to establish
the road map for the staff to follow in getting there. And then
that road map not only guides your operations throughout your
execution of this program, but at the end of the day, when you
explain your decisions, it allows you to clearly articulate the
basis for your decisions and credibly defend them.
Senator Lautenberg. Chairman, there are so many questions
that arise from this review, so the record is, I understand,
will be kept open.
Senator Boxer. Absolutely, the record is open. And Senator
Inhofe wanted to make a request.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, I want to make a unanimous consent
request, I didn't know that hydraulic fracturing was going to
be coming up. I would like to make an observation that the
first hydraulic frack job was done 60 years ago in my State of
Oklahoma and there has never been a documented case of ground
contamination. I have a statement from some, about 15 other
States, all the other States where this is a concern. I would
like to have this put into the record, that states the same
thing about their States as I stated about Oklahoma.
Senator Boxer. Absolutely. That will be put in the record.
[The referenced information follows.]
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Senator Boxer. And now we turn to Senator Boozman.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think one of the things that is so important as we deal
with the agencies and things, especially in dealing with issues
that really do affect our health, economic matters in the sense
that, trying to conform to some of the things that we come up
with literally will cost billions of dollars in some instances,
that you have to have confidence in the system. Mr. Trimble,
you talked about the agency performing tests where they were
doing testing and maybe, I will put it in my terms and you can
correct me, maybe they were testing for one part and then the
test itself was only good to two parts. Sometimes only good up
to 2,200 parts, and then making decisions based on that.
Can you comment further on that?
Mr. Trimble. Sure. In the decisions that they made in, I
believe it was 2003, 2008, to not regulate about 20
contaminants, I believe in 9 of those the testing data that the
program had developed was not at a level sufficient to detect
the contaminant at the point of concern. So exactly to your
point, it wasn't robust enough to test it at the level of
concern.
That raises lots of issues. But what we talk about in the
report, when we reviewed the determination in getting to the
issue of the credibility, is that the impact of that limitation
is either completely not addressed in the documentation
explaining the decision, the determination decision, or it is
buried. There could be other reasons why, maybe it is best
available, maybe you have other data. But the issue and the
basis for reaching a decision regarding sort of a big piece of
this as well. So you have the problem with the testing program,
but then you also have just the lack of explanation of, well,
OK, you had this problem, how did you get to this point.
Senator Boozman. You also have the problem, too, in the
sense that you can have a false sense of security, can't you,
in the sense that a test was supposedly performed and
everything was OK?
Mr. Trimble. Absolutely. In four of the decisions, they did
not acknowledge that there was this limitation or the impact of
that limitation on their conclusion that there was no health
issue.
Senator Boozman. So is that currently going on? Has that
gone on recently?
Mr. Trimble. Our review looked at the 20 decisions since
the 1996 amendments. And in nine of them, we identified this
issue. So that, I believe the last group we looked at was 2008.
Senator Boozman. Can you comment on that? Is that currently
still a problem, or in the recent years been a problem?
Mr. Perciasepe. We feel, and I mentioned in my opening
comments that we have modified our approach to looking at the
unregulated contaminant monitoring that we are allowed to do.
We are making sure that the testing that is done there, and
these are the suite of contaminants that we are concerned about
but that are not currently regulated, and we are trying to
determine if their occurrence, as David just mentioned, is
prevalent enough that it would be of concern. But you have to
measure for the right level. And we are confident that we have
modified our processes to be able to do that.
Senator Boozman. Mr. Trimble, you talked about the three
criteria for acting and went on to say that some of the people
in the EPA, when interviewed, said there are no bright lines,
that we will know it when we see it. Was that from scientists,
or were these political people? How does anybody that is
familiar with the scientific process, how do you deal with
statements like that?
Mr. Trimble. I would have to check who it was. But I think
it was more the regulatory office. And the issue of the
discussion was not seeing the need or not recognizing the need
for guidance or a road map in terms of how you interpret this.
It was sort of a we know it when we see it kind of decision.
Again, the problem as you have pointed out is the credibility
that leads to, where you can have, you may see it, I may see
it, somebody else may see something different, you can have
changes over time, changes between people. And that is the
issue I was trying to get at.
Senator Boozman. Yes, sir?
Mr. Perciasepe. And I also want to point out that we are
equally concerned with this and are happy to get this advice. I
think how to solve this problem is probably open to a little
bit of interpretation. GAO has laid out, I think, a thoughtful
way to do it. We are in the process of trying to do it
differently this time with developing our current list of
contaminants that we are concerned about. We have gone through
a very deliberate process that dissects those three large
categories that are in the Act, like is there an adverse health
effect. Well, we are looking at potency, we are looking at
sensitive populations, and we are screening down to that. We
also have to look at the occurrence data. We are looking at
both regional as well as national data.
The last step, and as I testified, the last step in the
judgment of the Administrator is there a meaningful opportunity
for a health risk reduction, well, we are proposing now, and
what I have asked the water program to look into is the staff
working on those first two, developing a report and then having
that report subject to a peer review which asks these
questions. And then the Administrator would have in front of
her both the staff report on the adverse health effects and the
occurrence or substantial occurrence data across the Country or
regionally, and that judgment would be able to be also
enhanced, by that peer review of that work that was done.
So in that final step which is in the judgment of the
Administrator, they would have both of those pieces of
information together. And I feel that if we get that peer
review to ask some of these questions, because there are so
many different kinds of contaminants, that they will be able to
see if the staff properly did the integration. However, we are
learning from doing it differently this time, and we definitely
want to have the criteria, as the Chairwoman mentioned, be
clearly laid out.
Senator Boozman. Thank you.
Mr. Trimble. I would just note, we have not obviously
reviewed the latest thinking and proposals. I am encouraged by
the direction. I note a couple of things. One, the triaging of
the contaminants of concern into the candidate list down to now
the current list has about 116 contaminants. That is, EPA has
indicated that is a prioritization, and it is. It is a first
step.
But 116 is not enough of a prioritization to guide your
direction from there. In 2009, the Science Advisory Board also
had a report encouraging EPA to prioritize.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
Senator Cardin?
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Trimble, first, let me thank you for this work. I think
it is extremely important. Mr. Perciasepe, I appreciate the
attitude of EPA to make sure we get this right.
It is very concerning when we know that we have had lists
now of unregulated contaminants. And there has been
inconsistency in the methods used to determine whether there
should be regulation. Our bottom line is to protect the public
health of the people of this Nation. They rely upon us to
determine whether water is safe to drink. And we have a
responsibility to make sure that in fact is being done.
What was most disconcerting about the GAO report, you
showed the listing of new contaminants for regulation, lacked a
procedural safeguard, that there were different variations of
assessment based on the chemical involved. So Mr. Perciasepe,
let me just ask you first, to what extent do you think the
variation of the assessment procedures from one chemical to
another affects the reliability of the EPA determinations?
Mr. Perciasepe. Well, Senator, there may be radionucleides,
there could be viruses, there could be bacteria or other
protozoans as well as chemicals. So all of them have different
ways you have to analyze them. I think that there is a
commonality of approach, though, when you start with a large
list and you start looking at which one of those things on that
large list has the most potential health effects, whether it be
sensitive sub-populations or whether it be to the general
population. And you keep narrowing that list down. David used
triage, I would call it some deliberate screening.
And I agree that you get that list down to 116, that is not
enough. Because this is really the precursor to deciding what
your priorities are to actually do a regulation on. So this is
not itself a regulation, this is just deciding what to
regulate.
And I think it is important that we do the best job we can,
publicly and with criteria and with disclosure on how we got
that, including peer review. And then from that list, the
Administrator has to decide. And we think the list will be
smaller than 116.
In this instance, we think it will be down to 30 or maybe
less. And that is what we will ask the outside reviewers to
say, do we have that list right, and did we ask these right
questions. And then that is what would be in front of the
Administrator, to make that determination.
Senator Cardin. Can we learn something from perchlorate, in
that it was included in the first uncontaminated chemical
monitoring rule, so at least many years ago, there was at least
some concern about it? Perchlorate is a toxic component of
rocket fuel that may disrupt the production of thyroid hormones
which are particularly sensitive for fetuses in young children.
I know that the Administration is moving forward on
perchlorate. Can you at least give us the status of where we
are on that, and whether there is a lesson to be learned as to
why we did not investigate this issue earlier?
Mr. Perciasepe. Well, obviously it went through the process
that I just described as it was designed in many respects in
the detail that GAO looked at. But since that time, we have re-
looked at the science there. We looked at not just modeling of
these physiological effects, but also the actual exposures to
children and pregnant women. That forms some of the key basis
for the Administrator making that determination that it is
required to go through the regulatory process.
So we are starting that regulatory process now, once that
determination is made.
Senator Cardin. What is the timeframe?
Mr. Perciasepe. I have to say, with the proposal and then
the final, it is probably going to be at least 2 years.
Senator Cardin. And one of the questions I would raise,
first of all, I think that is too long. But I understand the
procedures you have to go through. You used the funnel example
as to how many contaminants are listed, and you need to make a
priority judgment as to which are the greatest at risk and what
can be regulated effectively for public health.
Perchlorate to me was too high up in that funnel, it should
have been at a lower part of that funnel at an earlier stage,
which I think is what the GAO report really, this is an example
of the inadequate testing that was done earlier dealing with
perchlorate. So I hope we have learned that lesson to get it
down to the level of regulation earlier. And I would hope that
you would work with us to streamline the regulatory process,
because if the risk factors are to a vulnerable group, this
requires us to act in a more expedited way.
Mr. Perciasepe. I agree, and I think, I mean, I have worked
with some members here today on that Safe Drinking Water
Amendment in 1996, when I was in the government back in the
1990's. We deliberately wrote into the law that the
Administrator had to make a decision. They couldn't just keep
analyzing, there had to be a decision made. I think that what
has happened is that the transparency of that decision and the
criteria used to get to that point, and the peer review of the
staff and science that was being used in that final step by the
Administrator to decide yea or nay on a regulatory
determination, it is that point that got, I think, bent out of
shape in the last time the determination was made. And I
believe that having a peer review at that particular moment
will, you never solve every problem, but it will, I think
provide more transparency to why and if the Administrator is
making decisions based on the most current science.
Senator Cardin. Thank you very much.
Senator Boxer. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Udall, welcome.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Senator Boxer, and thank you for
holding this important hearing.
First, on behalf of the residents of northern New Mexico, I
would like to say thank you to the EPA, represented here by
Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe. The EPA provided really
important emergency air monitoring resources, including their
ASPECT plane to monitor air quality during the largest forest
fire in New Mexico's history, which threatened Los Alamos
National Laboratory and many other areas in New Mexico. Those
air monitoring results, the independence of them, the State
looked at things, EPA looked and the lab had their numbers.
But these air monitoring results we have seen so far show
no unusual pollution beyond what would be in a normal forest
fire, and EPA's independent presence on the ground and in the
air was of great value, I think, in providing the public with
credible information. So I thank you for that.
On the topic of today's hearing, several witnesses,
including the GAO, observed that the EPA has not fully taken
into account the impact of unregulated drinking water
contaminants on children's health, I know Senator Cardin
mentioned this earlier, as required by the Safe Water Drinking
Act and the agency's policy on children's health. And
perchlorate, in particular, is one that concerns me in the
decisionmaking on perchlorate. Perchlorate is an unregulated
contaminant found in many drinking water systems in the west,
which is home to many of our Nation's major military
facilities. New Mexico's communities are proud to host our
Nation's armed forces, but all communities, I think, deserve
clean drinking water.
Just as with forest fires, we are counting on EPA to
provide accurate, independent scientific information and take
the appropriate action.
So let me first start with Mr. Trimble on this issue of
children's health and the overview of the work you did. Could
you please describe the safe Drinking Water Act and the EPA
policy requirements on considering children's health impacts in
drinking water standards, and then two, describe your report's
findings on how EPA met these requirements, and three, describe
how recommendations you made relate to those children's health
requirements.
Mr. Trimble. Sure. First, the requirement to prioritize
contaminants of greatest concerns includes a provision that
prioritization should include impacts on children and other
sensitive sub-populations. So that is sort of square one, that
is part of the prioritization. And again, it goes to the
recommendation we have regarding how you establish that
priority list.
In observing how that has been implemented with EPA and our
work in doing those determinations has not integrated specific
risk assessments for children as part of its determinations. In
2003, in the determinations they made to not regulate
additional contaminants, it acknowledged that it did not have
the methodology to address the impact on children, but did not
then make any other explanation as to how they were going to
figure out whether this was protective of children's health.
In 2008, they made additional determinations where they
acknowledge that these contaminants had an effect on children's
health, but they did not explain in their analysis how that
potential risk was addressed in their analysis, and how their
conclusion that these contaminants did not need regulation was
protective of children's health.
In perchlorate, similar concerns were raised about
children's health. In fact, that is one of the reasons why the
decision was reconsidered, was concerns about uncertainty as
well as the impact on children. What I would note in that
regard is while the EPA, from my understanding, has decided to
regulate perchlorate, it is not clear at this point whether the
additional analysis it did in reconsidering its decision for
perchlorate will be carried forward in future determinations.
So in other words, are they going to integrate that analysis
and the impact on children in future determinations. It is
still a little unclear from what we have been given whether
that would happen.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Mr. Perciasepe, could you please respond to what we have
heard from the GAO on children's health and what will EPA do to
implement GAO recommendations in this area?
Mr. Perciasepe. We feel that we are required by law under
the Safe Drinking Water Act to consider the sensitive
populations. I won't read it, I have it sitting here in front
of me, but I can guarantee you that it is in the law and it is
clearly laid out, and the GAO has pointed this out clearly,
that we should be making a clear analysis. It depends on what
the health effect of the substance is. I would have to say some
may not have an impact on children in the same way.
But it doesn't negate the need to do it. So we would be
agreeing with that assessment that we need to be doing that.
That is going to be also part of our overall screening process
of even when it gets down to being looked at as a hard
contaminant. For instance, we have a contaminant on our current
list, a subset of that 116 we mentioned earlier, for instance,
strontium, which has a very important negative effect on bone
development, particularly in children. So that is one that is
on the list particularly because of children.
Senator Udall. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Boxer. Thank you. And Senator Udall, thank you for
all your work on children's health. This is so critical,
because we have a responsibility to them.
I just want to thank the panel very, very much, GAO for
your clarity. I think this report was very good. And I think it
should be embraced by everyone, because what you are basically
saying is transparency in these decisions, move quicker on
these decisions, and get it done. And I applaud the EPA for
your response, which is, we hear you. I just want you to know,
we are watching on chromium-6 and perchlorate. I am looking
forward to that briefing.
And by the way, anybody else who wants to hear the briefing
on these 17 contaminants that have been looked at since 1998
and nothing has been done, we are going to have a briefing. We
just might do it as an open briefing, but I will let you know
about that.
Mr. Perciasepe. OK, we are ready.
Senator Boxer. Well, we appreciate it so much. We really do
appreciate it. And even your sports analogies which drew our
interest.
[Laughter.]
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
Mr. Perciasepe. I will remember to use football the next
time.
Senator Boxer. Football, baseball, soccer, that is fine. It
is good. Women's soccer in particular would be good.
[Laughter.]
Senator Boxer. OK, panel two. Dr. Lynn Goldman; A.W.
``Butch'' Araiza; Dr. Joseph Cotruvo; Dr. Steven Patierno; and
Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths. And each of you will have an opening of
5 minutes. And at that point, I will ask you to put the
remainder of your statement in the record. So if you could
summarize.
We are going to start with Lynn Goldman and we are going to
move down the table, if that is OK. So Dr. Lynn Goldman,
welcome, American Public Heath Association, Dean of the School
of Public Health and Health Services, and Professor of
Environmental and Occupational Health, George Washington
University. We are very delighted that you are here, thank you.
STATEMENT OF LYNN GOLDMAN, MD, MPH, AMERICAN PUBLIC Health
ASSOCIATION, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH
SERVICES AND PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL Health
AT THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Dr. Goldman. And thank you very much. It is my pleasure to
testify about the Environmental Protection Agency's
implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act's unregulated
drinking water contaminants program on behalf of the American
Public Health Association.
I have been a member of the APHA for almost 20 years. I am
pleased to represent them today. The APHA is dedicated to
protecting all Americans and their communities from
preventable, serious health threats and assuring community-
based health promotion and disease prevention activities and
preventive health services are universally accessible in the
United States. APHA has long advocated for strong environmental
health laws.
Safe drinking water is essential to public health, and our
Nation's drinking water supply is one of the safest in the
world. Along with the EPA, our Nation's State and local health
departments also play a critical role to ensure the safety of
our drinking water. Additionally, there are more than 170,000
public water systems providing water.
While most of our drinking water does not violate EPA
standards for maximum contaminant levels, the APHA is concerned
over a number of public health issues. First, we are concerned
about the decline in Federal resources to State to improve
drinking water infrastructure. In fact, the final 2011
continuing resolution, and I have heard possibly the 2012
budget as well, is cutting significant amounts of money,
hundreds of millions of dollars, from the EPA's Safe Drinking
Water State Revolving Fund.
Second, we are concerned about unregulated contaminants.
Tens of thousands of chemicals are on the market, but the vast
majority of these will never appear in finished drinking water.
Those that are in drinking water should be regulated by EPA so
the public can be assured that levels are safe.
A number of specific chemicals have been of concern to the
APHA, including perchlorate, chromium-6, trichloroethylene and
other volatile organic chemicals, and a number of pesticides
and disinfection products found in drinking water across the
Nation. APHA expected that the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act
amendments would have increased the number of chemicals that
were regulated by EPA. Unfortunately, EPA did not adopt new
drinking water safeguards for chemicals after that law was
passed. And a recent study by the Environmental Working Group
reported that hundreds of unregulated contaminants are found in
our drinking water systems.
Why do we need to have MCLs? Minus the establishment of
MCLs and health-based MCL goals, how are we to know that the
levels of chemicals in drinking water are safe? In response,
several States have undertaken drinking water regulation of
unregulated contaminants, for example, the State of California
regulating perchlorate, chromium-6, TCE, several VOCs and
pesticides. But only national standards can assure safe
drinking water across our entire Country.
Third, we are concerned that EPA standards not only protect
the average adult but also adequately protect infants and
children, the frail elderly and those with weakened immune
systems. As a pediatrician, I am particularly concerned about
infants less than 6 months of age who receive drinking water in
infant formula. These infants consume five times more drinking
water per body weight than adults. They therefore have greater
exposure to any substance in drinking water than adults would.
And yet, we also know that at these life stages that they may
be more sensitive, less able to metabolize, detoxify and
excrete toxic substances, as well as more sensitive to
developmental effects, effects on growth and development.
The 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments directed the
EPA to protect the general population, as well as those
significant sub-populations. This authority needs to be
exercised by the EPA in the regulation of unregulated
contaminants.
In conclusion, APHA suggests a number of ways that EPA
could strengthen the regulation of chemicals in drinking water.
EPA does need to implement the 2009 National Academy of
Sciences report, Science and Decisions Advancing Risk
Assessment, especially the recommended changes in risk
assessment design, dose response modeling, uncertainty analysis
and analysis of cumulative risk. Cumulative risk is not only
the risk of multiple chemicals that might act in the same way,
but also the risks that people have in other exposures in daily
life that create public health threats like nutrition, exposure
to smoke, other carcinogens.
EPA needs to develop MCLs for unregulated toxic chemicals
and pesticides that are present in drinking water so that the
public can be confident of safety. And third, EPA needs to
strengthen its efforts to protect vulnerable populations such
as infants and children and pregnant women from risks of
drinking water contaminants.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning, and
I am happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Goldman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. Thank you, Dr. Goldman. I think that
cumulative risk issue is key. I thank you for bringing it up.
And it is my pleasure to introduce Mr. A.W. ``Butch''
Araiza, General Manager of the West Valley Water District in
the Inland Empire, my State. It has been my pleasure to work
with them. They face some tough issues and we look forward to
hearing from him.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY ARAIZA, GENERAL MANAGER, WEST VALLEY WATER
DISTRICT
Mr. Araiza. Thank you, Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member
Inhofe and members of the Committee. It is an honor to be asked
to testify today about the West Valley Water District's success
in removing perchlorate from groundwater.
I would first like to communicate my profound thanks to
Senator Boxer. Over the years, you and your staff have been key
in helping us secure Federal funding for our remediation
efforts in helping encourage the Environmental Protection
Agency and the Department of Defense to aid in treatment of
contaminated water in our region. West Valley Water District's
success is very much your success as well. Thank you.
By way of introduction, I have been employed by the
District for the past 48 years. I worked my way up through the
ranks to the position of General Manager nearly 16 years ago.
In 2002, the District became the lead agency in Inland Empire
Perchlorate Task Force, which is responsible for coordinating
the investigation and response to the serious perchlorate
contamination crisis in our area.
West Valley Water District was founded almost 60 years ago.
Today, we serve almost 20,000 homes and businesses. Our staff
and board of directors are dedicated to protecting,
safeguarding and delivering clean water to our customers at the
lowest reasonable price. The necessity to innovate was
presented clearly by our need to remediate the effects of
widespread perchlorate pollution in the inland empire. The
source of that pollution is a 160-acre industrial site in
Northern Rialto that used to be a U.S. Army munitions depot.
The State of California has set a limit of perchlorate of 6
parts per billion.
But the plume migrating from the site has led to levels as
high as 800 parts per billion. This has forced West Valley
Water District and other water providers in the area to shut
down or otherwise restrict the use of at least 22 groundwater
production wells, representing more than half the region's
water supply. Additional groundwater production wells may need
to be shut down as pollution continues to migrate. We have no
choice other than to remediate. Groundwater is the main source
of drinking water in the region and alternative sources are not
reliable. Estimated costs for cleaning up the whole problem
would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and could take
up to 30 years.
Meanwhile, remediation poses a significant burden to the
ratepayers in one of the most economically disadvantaged
regions in the Nation. Facing this crisis and lacking the vast
resources required to solve it, West Valley Water District has
looked to innovative solutions. We were fortunate to find that
the Department of Defense's Environmental Security Technology
Certification Program, ESTCP, and its extremely capable
executive director, Dr. Jeffery Marqusee. Under the leadership
of Dr. Marqusee, ESTCP is demonstrating the most innovative and
cost effective technologies that address DOD's high priority
environmental requirements. Our work with ESTCP is a win-win
partnership, providing our customers clean water while
collecting data that the ESTCP uses to advance cost-effective
technology.
The District's perchlorate remediation efforts start in
2003, utilizing technology known as ion exchange. We are
currently running five ion exchange systems, one of which is
cutting edge and was made possible by the ESTCP. Ion exchange
systems work by trapping perchlorate and resin, and our
experience has proven them to be safe and reliable.
With the support of ESTCP and the State of California, we
have recently broken ground on the first facility to use
naturally occurring biological process to treat drinking water.
Bioremediation allows natural process to break down perchlorate
and other harmful chemicals in the water. Bioremediation has
proven safe and effective, does not use harmful chemicals and
requires less annual maintenance than other methods. Our
project will provide clean tap water to our customers and
opportunities for ESTCP to save the Department of Defense
significant amounts of money at sites they may have liability
for across the Country.
We are proud to provide a venue for demonstrating this
pioneering green technology. It should not surprise you that
West Valley Water District is not going to stop working toward
the future, now that the bioremediation project is underway. We
anticipate this project will become a component of a much
larger undertaking to fully restore the region's groundwater
supplies. The District is currently working with the United
States Environmental Protection Agency, the State of California
and parties responsible for the contamination to develop a plan
for final phase of groundwater clean-up. This is a lot of work
yet to be done, and we are looking for more innovative
solutions, just as we have been for the past 60 years.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify to the Committee,
and I would be happy to take any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Araiza follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much, and we welcome our next
speaker, Dr. Joseph Cotruvo, it is Joseph Cotruvo and
Associates, LLC, Water, Environmental and Public Health
Institute. Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. COTRUVO, PH.D., PRESIDENT, JOSEPH
COTRUVO AND ASSOCIATES
Mr. Cotruvo. Thank you, Chairman Boxer and Senator Inhofe.
I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you today.
My name is Joseph Cotruvo. I have spent more than 35 years
in public health matters. The doctorate is in physical organic
chemistry. I was the first Director of EPA's Drinking Water
Standards division back about 35 year ago when the law was
passed, and spent a number of years there. In the course of
that, I was involved in developing many of the existing
regulations and in fact, many of the methodologies that are
used for regulating.
The regulations are very comprehensive. We will talk about
more of them later. Currently I work internationally on water
quality and health. I do some non-U.S. Government assistance on
regulatory activity and water quality. I serve on a number of
advisory committees, including World Health Organization's
guidelines for drinking water quality, which is actually what
the rest of the world, outside the United States, uses for
establishing its drinking water safety.
I am also a member of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority
board of directors here. I just want you to know, I am not
representing any organization or institution. These are my
personal thoughts, conclusions, and I am not receiving any
compensation for this presentation.
On the topic of drinking water quality and safety, almost
all community water systems in the United States produce safe
drinking water, including Washington, DC, although some may not
believe that. It is a daunting task, because we are dealing
with 65,000 water supplies, 25 persons up to millions. And it
is a very complex job that is a multi-faceted job. EPA has a
role, States have a role, and of course, it is all underpinned
by those guys that are out there every day, 24-7, producing
that water at the tap.
Overall, I think EPA has done a generally good job of
implementing the Safe Drinking Water Act. The record shows that
reported waterborne infectious disease outbreaks have declined
since the implementation of the law. And the portion of
outbreaks due to distribution systems and infrastructure has
increased. So overall, it has declined, but that part has gone
up. That tells us very clearly that the problem is
infrastructure, it means that water going in from the plant
better than the water that it coming out at the tap.
So fixing that and maintaining is, I think, really the
greatest public health challenge that we have to face here, and
the greatest public health concern.
The current regulations are very comprehensive. They cover
a number of substances, 81 MCLs, microbial contamination, which
basically covers all microbial contaminants, radionucleides all
are covered. There is corrosion control, there are some
specific items also. But the numbers even belie the reality in
that they actually cover much, much more than just those
numbers, because all those regulations, or many of them in fact
have a cascade of other substances that are protected against
by the regulation that is in place.
Regulations have to be protected. They are designed to be
protective. They have certain safety factors built in, and that
is what we expect. But it is of course important that they have
to be realistic, and they have to be appropriate for the kind
of risk involved, and the significance, and in fact, the
strength of evidence that there is really a risk involved. That
is why part of the task that EPA has is so difficult. Because
with all of these new analytic methods, as you heard from the
GAO, methods keep getting lower and lower. We used to talk
about parts per million, now parts per billion, now parts per
trillion, and next year it will be parts per quadrillion,
probably.
So what all that means is we are finding more and more
substances. It doesn't mean that there are more there than were
there 5 years ago or 10 years ago or whatever. It is just we
are finding them now. Invariably, when one is measuring
something at levels that are that low, it is really hard to
conceive that there is some significant risk from exposure at
that minute level.
Just to put some things in perspective a little bit, I have
a couple of items here mentioning reports on perchlorate and
pharmaceuticals. I will just read you the report that came this
year from the UNFAO, WHO, JECFA Committee: ``The estimated
dietary exposures of 0.7 micrograms per kilogram per day,
highest, and 0.1 microgram per kilogram per day, mean,
including both food and drinking water, are well below the
provisional maximum tolerable daily intake. The committee
considered that these estimated dietary exposures were not of
health concern.''
So there are differing points of view that one has to deal
with in this business. And that makes all of our jobs and EPA's
very difficult.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cotruvo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. Your time has passed, and we need to move
on. We thank you.
Dr. Steven Patierno, we are glad that you are here. And let
me give your background to the folks. Executive Director of the
George Washington Cancer Institute. We are very happy you are
here. And is also Vivian Gil here with you?
Mr. Patierno. I am sorry?
Senator Boxer. Is Vivian Gil here with you?
Mr. Patierno. No. Vivian Gil is a historical donor to the
George Washington University endowing a professorship, which I
hold.
Senator Boxer. Aha, that is what I was going to say. It
says, this is so funny, it says Vivian Gil Distinguished
Professor of Oncology, so I thought she was a distinguished
professor.
[Laughter.]
Senator Boxer. But we have you, and you are the
distinguished professor. So we are thrilled that you are here.
Go ahead.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN R. PATIERNO, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY CANCER CENTER
Mr. Patierno. Before I start, I would like to also quickly
apologize for the length of my comments. I only found I was
invited to attend this on Friday and just didn't have time to
hone this down to exactly 5 minutes, as some of my colleagues
have.
Senator Boxer. We don't have a choice, because we need to
go on. So please, go ahead. Do your best.
Mr. Patierno. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Inhofe, and
members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to
address you today. As you have heard, my name is Steve
Patierno, I am the Director of the GW Cancer Institute. I am
also a professor of pharmacology and physiology in the School
of Medicine and a professor of environmental and occupational
health in the School of Public Health.
I have been conducting research for over 31 years on
hexavalent chromium, 23 of those funded by the National
Institute of Environmental Health sciences and the National
Cancer Institute. I have published many papers, served on many
review committees. I would also like to disclose that although
I have never worked for, consulted directly for any company
associated with any chromium-related industry, over the course
of 30 years of working in chromium, I have on seven occasions
served as an expert for the defense in chromium litigation.
A recent release issued by the Environmental Working Group
entitled Chromium-6 in U.S. Tap Water reported that very low
levels of hexavalent chromium were found in drinking water in
31 U.S. cities. Most of the cities with the highest of these
low levels of ambient chromium-6 have little or no proximity to
any chromium-related industry, indicating that these levels
likely constitute a natural background, results that are
neither new nor unexpected. The report and the associated media
coverage, which was purposeful in referring to chromium-6 as
the carcinogenic Erin Brockovich chemical, has caused
unnecessary fear and alarm, as these levels constitute no
health risks to humans.
It should be stated that there is a vast literature on
occupational and industrial exposures to high doses of chromium
compounds for long periods of time, a large literature on
animal studies and defined systems. Valid conclusions are only
drawn when complementary data come together and fundamental
principles and practices of pharmacology and toxicology must be
factored into an accurate analysis.
Taken together, the consistent message is that only long-
term high dose exposures to chromate dusts, as encountered in
the chromate production pigment and plating industry have been
associated with human cancer, and only for cancers of the
respiratory tract. The same studies also showed there was no
consistent association with any increased risk of other
cancers. This is attested to by every major government
international agency review ever written.
All three major areas of risk related study, epidemiology,
animal studies and cell culture provide clear evidence for very
high threshold levels for both toxicity and carcinogenicity.
And in fact, epidemiologic studies can identify no effect
levels despite long-term occupational exposures that are
factored over a 45 year work history. Likewise, published meta-
analyses, investigated gastrointestinal tract cancers, and all
of this analysis shows no significant risk in malignancy for
any GI site.
An often overlooked fact is Dr. John Morgan, an
epidemiologist working for the State of California Cancer
Registry has been tracking cancer incidence in the town of
Hinckley, California, the Erin Brockovich town, for the past 15
years. And he recently reported that not only is there no
excess of total cancer or any specific type of cancer in
Hinckley, there is actually fewer cancers than expected.
Evidence for a very high threshold level for chromium
carcinogenicity is found in the recent NTP animal studies where
rodents were administered very high concentrations of chromium-
6 in the drinking water continuously for 2 years. Tumors were
only observed at the two highest doses, and they were so high
the water was unpalatable to rodents. And they resulted in
long-term chronic tissue damage. There is a figure in my
comments. I would ask you to note the sharp high-dose threshold
for toxicity and that no toxicological effects were observed,
even at doses that are nearly five orders of magnitude, 100,000
times higher than the average tap water concentration reported
in the EWP report.
Despite Hollywood depictions, chromium-6 is not potent as
either a toxic or a carcinogen. Enormous quantities of chromium
are needed to evoke any kind of toxicity in humans or animals.
This is because humans have a many-tiered, innate mechanism of
protection against chemical toxicities of any sort, including
chromium. It is critical to understand that chromium compounds
exist in two forms, a trivalent form, which is an essential
element required for human physiology, and a hexavalent form.
Hexavalent chromium is very, very rapidly and completely
reduced to trivalent chromium by a number of protective
mechanisms and fluids in the human body. And recent studies
have shown that this conversion takes place in less than a
minute.
If it does reach a cell, there are intra-cellular
mechanisms of protection that prevent it from directly
interacting with DNA. So it is not correct to assume that if a
vanishingly small amount of hexavalent chromium reaches a cell,
it automatically becomes carcinogenic.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Patierno follows:]
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Senator Boxer. Thank you very much, sir.
We are going to move to our final witness, Dr. Jeffrey
Griffiths, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and
Community Medicine at Tufts.
STATEMENT OF JEFFREY K. GRIFFITHS, MD, MPH AND TM, CHAIR,
DRINKING WATER COMMITTEE, SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD OF UNITED
STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC
HEALTH AND OF MEDICINE, TUFTS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Dr. Griffiths. Thank you, Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member
Senator Inhofe, members of the Committee. Good morning. I
really appreciate this opportunity to testify.
My name is Jeff Griffiths, I am actually a professor now at
Tufts University. And I am Chair of the Science Advisory
Board's Drinking Water Panel which advises the U.S. EPA. I am
trained as a physician, internal medicine, pediatrics,
infectious diseases, epidemiology. Relevant to this, I have
been involved in regulation for about 15 years of drinking
water contaminants. In fact, I was a member of both the
National Academy of Sciences panel which recommended some
changes in the way the EPA looks at unregulated contaminants,
as well as the National Drinking Water Advisory Committee when
it also then chewed on that report and then made some
suggestions to the EPA.
So I would just like to comment a bit on some of the ways
in which I see there needs to be a sea change in the way these
things are looked at. One of the things that is really
important to acknowledge is there is a sea of new chemicals out
there that we are finding. We are just finding more and more
and more of them as detection capacity increases.
Unfortunately, health effects data is really hard to get. It is
expensive, it is time-consuming, et cetera. So we really only
have health information on a small number of contaminants.
So this, I think, means that the number of chemicals has
essentially outstripped our capacity to get health information
very easily.
The second point that I would like to make along that line
is of course that the health effects differ, depending on who
you are. If you are a baby or pregnant mother or something like
that, it is going to differ depending on what population you
are part of.
The next point that I would like to make is the need for
transparency and a good public process. It forms a good, robust
scientific basis for decisionmaking, because that means that
things are out in the open. And also some confidence on the
part of the public in terms of accepting the conclusions that
are made about these compounds. And I would just comment that
the 1998 contaminant list was considered quite murky and relied
on expert opinion. You are going to hear a diversity of expert
opinions about these contaminants. So I think the transparency
is really important.
I just wanted to go through the perchlorate story a little
bit, because it seems to me that kind of illustrates these
points. First off, we didn't really know that perchlorate was
in the water until detection capacity improved. That happened
in the 1990's. So then suddenly people were finding perchlorate
everywhere. So that means that monitoring and actually, good
monitoring is really critical.
The second point that I would make along that line of the
perchlorate story is that it has been known for a while that
perchlorate affects thyroid function. But because of the
interest in perchlorate there were new studies done, there is
new animal data. And some of that animal data, for example,
suggests that perchlorate acts on thyroid function in a
different way than we had thought and at lower levels.
So that is consistent, in fact, with data that was
accumulated by the CDC in doing a study of nearly 3,000 people
where they found that women living in Atlanta and throughout
the Country had less thyroid hormone in their system if they
had more perchlorate in their system. So there seemed to be
some kind of an inverse relationship. So if you are exposed to
perchlorate, you may have lower thyroid levels.
And then I think that illustrates the point that once
something gets on a list, it means there is going to be more
science done about this thing. So it has to make it onto the
list.
The last point that I would like to make in this story is
that if we didn't know anything about a specific sensitive
population with perchlorate, we might have less concern. That
is because perchlorate is concentrated in breast milk. So when
a mother is nursing, she may be delivering high levels of
perchlorate. And sort of perversely also less iodine than the
baby needs. If you didn't look at that particular population,
you wouldn't know this.
And I have some data in here about that in my remarks. But
the key thing is that by looking at a susceptible population,
suddenly there is this new information that goes, ah, OK, so
this is a group that is more susceptible not only inherently
but because of the way mom delivers breast milk. So I think it
is a really critical thing that there be data collected from
susceptible populations.
I want to comment that there were many people such as
myself who were surprised that perchlorate was not identified
for regulation in 2008. It was a controversial decision. And
many people thought there was a lack of transparency around
that. And that goes to the original point that I made, that
transparency is really crucial in this.
Drinking water contaminants are really high on the public
discourse, and I think there are four things that have to be
done. We have to look at groups of compounds for regulation. We
need to devote sufficient resources, so that we can monitor
these compounds. We have to look at health effects, both in the
general population and in the susceptible populations. And
last, the whole process has to be transparent, because this
will maximize scientific credibility and public confidence.
Thanks very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Griffiths follows:]
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Senator Boxer. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe has asked if he can ask his questions first.
Senator Inhofe. Mine will be very, very brief. I do have a
lot of questions I want to ask for the record that I will be
submitting.
Dr. Patierno, I know that you have done extensive research
into chromium-6, with particular emphasis on the carcinogenic
and mutagenic efforts. As you know, my constituents in Norman,
Oklahoma are very much concerned about this. I just wanted to
get your expert opinion. First of all, is chromium-6 mutagenic?
And second, are my constituents at health risk from drinking
water at the low levels of chromium? I am talking about Norman,
Oklahoma now, because I think you are aware of what is going on
there.
Mr. Patierno. Yes. Thank you for the question, Senator
Inhofe. The question of whether hexavalent chromium is
mutagenic has become a very interesting question. Those of us
who work in DNA damage and carcinogenesis have known for years
that in carefully contrived experimental conditions, we can
force virtually any chemical to become carcinogenic, or excuse
me, mutagenic. We have been concerned for a long time that in
order to detect mutagenicity after exposure to chromium, one
has to use enormous concentrations that actually kill the vast
number of cells or tissue cells that get exposed.
We have always been concerned about that. Recent studies
have gone back in, actually sequenced the DNA sequence of the
genes that we thought had been mutagenized, and found that the
DNA sequence is still intact. And that has led to a current
understanding, or an emerging understanding, that despite the
fact that you can force chromium-6 to get into cells at very
high doses and damage DNA, or bind to DNA, it appears that the
mode of action is that we are killing cells and selecting for
survivors.
So that has raised very significant questions that came up
2 months ago in the review panel for the toxicological review
of chromium, and extensive discussion was made about that
extensive question.
Senator Inhofe. Are they at risk?
Mr. Patierno. Are they at risk at the levels in tap water?
Senator Inhofe. Yes.
Mr. Patierno. Absolutely not.
Senator Inhofe. OK, that is what I wanted them to hear.
The last question I have is for Dr. Cotruvo. I appreciate
your statement and your emphasis on fixing and maintaining
infrastructure and reducing leaks and contamination. I was
telling the Chairman here that I went through this experience
when I became mayor of Tulsa. We had a deteriorated
infrastructure.
Do you think that the funding, the SRF program, the
revolving fund program, would be important in accomplishing
some of this infrastructure correction that we need?
Mr. Cotruvo. Certainly, the financial demands are huge.
Somehow we built all this without a lot of Federal support over
the last 200 years. But it has really come to the point where
there is significant infusion that is needed to get these
systems back up. And probably Federal funds are going to be
necessary.
Senator Inhofe. But revolving funds is what I was referring
to.
Mr. Cotruvo. Yes.
Senator Inhofe. OK, thank you very much. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
Senator Boxer. Thank you.
Dr. Patierno, I am struck by your confidence that chromium-
6 is safe, and I am going to press you on that. First of all,
you argue that too much was given to the animals. Isn't this
what we do in science? Because of their life span, isn't that a
normal test, that you give a lot to the animal so that you can
see what is going on?
Mr. Patierno. Yes, that is a standard procedure. I am not
arguing that too much was given. What I am arguing is that so
much was given that it was, it overwhelmed all possible
protective mechanisms. And even at very, very, very high doses,
not effect was observed until the two very highest doses, which
went hand in glove with extensive toxicity to the tissue.
Senator Boxer. But isn't that being conservative, in your
approach? Isn't it the point? I understand that you have
testified as a defense witness, isn't that correct, on
chromium-6 cases?
Mr. Patierno. I have on occasion.
Senator Boxer. Yes, you have. You made money doing that?
Mr. Patierno. I have.
Senator Boxer. Yes, you have. I don't make money on any
side of this thing. I am trying to protect the public, OK? So
when you tell me too much was given, I want to be conservative
about this.
So Dr. Goldman, I think it gets to your point, and Dr.
Griffiths as well, I would like to ask you to comment on the
cumulative effect. You made the strong point, and I think Dr.
Griffiths as well, what we are dealing with here, we are
looking at something where if a little child is exposed, let's
say even in utero and continues to be exposed to these
contaminants, it is a cumulative impact, is it not, Dr.
Goldman?
Dr. Goldman. Yes, it is. It is a cumulative impact. It is
also the impact of exposures over a lifetime. And I should say
in the case of hexavalent chromium that this has been reviewed
by expert bodies, like the International Agency for Research on
Cancer. And they do conclude that it is a risky substance. They
do not conclude that they can absolutely assure safety at the
levels of exposure in the population.
Senator Boxer. Dr. Griffiths?
Dr. Griffiths. Thank you. The issue of mixtures of
chemicals is really a big one. Because we have a way in science
of doing this kind of dancing on the head of a pin where we
have the chemical or no chemical. But the truth is we live and
we drink water with lots of different things in it. And we have
exposures not only through water but air and food and so forth.
And we really don't have good tools for figuring that stuff
out.
So I think that we in fact do have to develop new tools.
But also, what information we do have suggests that exposure to
multiple chemicals, even at low levels, can be risky. So I
think it is important to understand that sometimes it is not
just one thing. It is like smoking and asbestos exposure. Your
rates of lung cancer are really high if you both smoke and have
exposure to asbestos. But they are much lower if you only do
one.
Mr. Patierno. May I comment?
Senator Boxer. Dr. Patierno, yes, I am going to let you
have the floor in a minute. I am going to ask you this
question. The National Toxicology Program, which is part of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, found that
chromium-6 in drinking water caused cancer in the studies of
animals. And you have taken issue with how much they got, I
don't know exactly what you said, you said, I don't think they
got too much, but it is how much--I was confused on what you
were talking about.
And then the EPA's draft assessment on chromium-6 has found
that this toxic heavy metal is ``likely to be carcinogenic to
humans when consumed in water.'' So you take issue with this?
Mr. Patierno. Madam Chairman, it is not just that I take
issue. All nine members of the external review panel for the
draft toxicological assessment of hexavalent chromium disagree
with that assumption. It has to be qualified by dose. And the
assessments that are done by international agencies on the
carcinogenicity of chromium deal specifically with high level
occupational exposures. And they even cite in the literature
these are exposures as encountered in the chromate production
pigment and plating industries. Because of the unique chemistry
and biology of chromium, of hexavalent chromium, and the
capability of our bodies to reduce hexavalent chromium very
quickly to trivalent chromium, which is completely non-toxic,
and in fact, is an essential element, make it unique among
other chemicals and make it so that it is not scientifically
sound to do a linear dose extrapolation at high doses.
Senator Boxer. OK, OK, I get it. You don't agree with it. I
get it. Now, is there anything you agree with? We have
standards for 88 different chemicals, I am sure you are aware
of this, over the years. Do you believe that these are safe and
shouldn't have had standards associated with them?
Mr. Patierno. I have not looked into any of the others. I
was only invited here today to speak on----
Senator Boxer. I know. But you are making a statement, you
were a witness for the defense, I am questioning your
objectivity. So I am trying to find out if you just feel that
way on--I assume you think it is fine to limit the amount of
chromium in the water, total chromium, is that correct?
Mr. Patierno. Total chromium?
Senator Boxer. Yes, total chromium, which is in fact
regulated and has been for quite some time.
Mr. Patierno. I am not sure I am following specifically
your question.
Senator Boxer. I am asking a question. There is 88--you are
an expert--there are 88 chemicals that are regulated under the
law where they have maximum contaminant levels. This piece of
paper tells me that chromium is regulated. Are you aware of
that?
Mr. Patierno. Yes, I am.
Senator Boxer. OK. Do you support that?
Mr. Patierno. I do support that chromium needs to be
regulated based on the occupational exposures that are so well
characterized in the literature.
Senator Boxer. This is drinking water. This isn't
occupational. This is the Safe Drinking Water law of the land.
Do you agree that there should be a limit on chromium in
drinking water?
Mr. Patierno. Madam Chairman, the question for me is not
whether there should be. There of course should be. The
question is at what level.
Senator Boxer. OK, how about arsenic? Do you think we
should regulate arsenic in drinking water? Yes or no?
Mr. Patierno. Madam Chairman, I am here today to speak on
hexavalent chromium.
Senator Boxer. No, you are not really. You are not really.
You are here because we are having an overview of the Safe
Drinking Water program. And we are not asking you just on
chromium. What about benzene? What about chlorine? Do you
support that?
Mr. Patierno. Any chemical that has potential toxicological
impact needs to be evaluated and regulated. But each chemical
needs to be evaluated based on the science supporting that
specific chemical, the mechanisms of action of that chemical,
the defense mechanisms that the body has against particular
chemicals. All of that needs to be taken into consideration.
One could argue using a different set of criteria that
something as common and innocuous as acetaminophen shouldn't be
on the market because two might control a headache but 50 could
dissolve your liver and create a lethal situation. So it is all
about dose and form and duration. And then the basic principles
of toxicology which argue in this case that human beings have
very, very, very strong defense mechanisms, particularly
against low levels of hexavalent chromium.
Senator Boxer. Well, good luck with that theory, because
you ought to talk to some people who had exposure who don't
feel that way. But you are a scientist, and I am saying to you,
we have 88 different chemicals that are regulated here. And if
people came with your attitude and appeared in court in favor
of the defense, we wouldn't get anywhere. And we have a problem
here, and that is why we called you together. Because since
1998, we haven't regulated anything.
And I think what you hear from the panel basically is, we
may not have to regulate a lot of things. We agree that maybe,
as Dr. Cotruvo said, existent in, and echoed by Dr. Griffith,
they may be appearing in very small, minute quantities. And
that is why we have to look at the risk factors, who is exposed
to these, the cumulative impact, as Dr. Goldman suggested, and
not just say, we appeared for the defense. That is just not
going to get us anywhere, when money gets involved in the
equation.
We need to have pure science. And that is what I am for,
pure science.
Now, we will be very interested to see where the EPA takes
it on perchlorate. And I could tell you that you just talked to
my constituent here on perchlorate, when you have 800, what is
it, 800 parts per billion?
Mr. Araiza. Yes.
Senator Boxer. Instead of six?
Mr. Araiza. Yes.
Senator Boxer. And you smell that, as I have, and you see
it, it is scary. It is scary.
Mr. Araiza. Yes.
Senator Boxer. And we know the Safe Drinking Water Act is
going to protect the most vulnerable. We are not talking about
protecting a 250 pound man who is 6 foot 5 here. That is what
we just to do. But guess what? A Boxer amendment a very long
time ago did something your clients didn't like, Dr. Patierno.
We said, you have to protect the most vulnerable child. That
was my amendment, God bless it, it passed. And so, no, we are
going to be conservative when we set these standards, and we
are going to look to see how we can protect the most
vulnerable.
But I want to thank the panel. You have all been very, very
helpful. We are going to move on and see what happens with
these rules on chromium-6, on perchlorate. We are going to see
what happens when the EPA adopts many of the recommendations
made by the GAO, because clearly, no one can tell me that we
are any safer today when we haven't even regulated one thing
since 1998. It just doesn't add up, when you look at the rates
of cancer out there. Let's just get real here.
Especially I say to the doctors, we have cancer in people
younger and younger. We have serious problems, we are spending
billions of dollars, we don't have a cure. And I will be darned
if I am going to sit here and allow us to say that this isn't
important. This is very important and we are going to do our
work.
So we look forward to seeing the EPA's response. I am very
encouraged by today's hearing, because I think the GAO's very
good work is going to lead us to more science, hopefully less
politics, more transparency and more action. So thank you very
much, all of you, for being here today. We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
Statement of Hon. Jeff Sessions, U.S. Senator
from the State of Alabama
Good morning Mr. Trimble and Dr. Perciasepe. Thank you for
coming before our committee today.
We are here today to consider EPA's implementation of the
Safe Drinking Water Act, which is designed to protect our
nation's drinking water supplies from harmful contamination. As
the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Water & Wildlife, I
am interested in learning more about this topic.
Under this law, EPA currently regulates more than 90
drinking water contaminants--things like cryptosporidium,
chlorine, E-coli, and arsenic, just to name a few. These are
contaminants that we all want to ensure do not damage our
drinking water. EPA is required by the Safe Drinking Water Act
to periodically review existing standards as well as to
consider whether new standards should be issued.
I am aware that GAO has issued a report expressing an
opinion that EPA should improve the way it decides whether to
regulate additional contaminants. I am interested in learning
more about that report.
In addition, there are 4 issues, in particular, that I
think we need to be sure to keep in mind.
First, the Role of the States. The Safe Drinking Water Act,
like many of our Federal environmental laws, is based on a
concept known as ``cooperative federalism.'' EPA oversees the
program, but the States have a critically important role in
implementing and administering the program.
In Alabama, our State environmental management agency works
closely with more than 700 water systems in the State to ensure
safe drinking water for our state's 4 million citizens. The
State enforces compliance with the drinking water standards.
There are monthly, quarterly, and annual monitoring and
reporting requirements to ensure compliance. By and large, our
State has very good drinking water, and I believe we have an
effective drinking water program.
We cannot lose focus of the fact that what we do here, at
the Federal level, results in mandates on the states. Those
mandates are, in large measure, usually unfunded. So, as we
explore the possibility of greater regulation, we need to
ensure there is close consultation with the states, as well as
with the water systems themselves.
Second, the Impact of New Standards on Water Systems and
Water Users. When a new Federal MCL (maximum contaminant level)
is issued, the water systems have to comply with that new
standard. That becomes a new cost imposed on those who pay for
the water. Rural water systems, in particular, often carry the
heaviest burden when trying to comply with these standards. I
think we need to be as flexible and reasonable as possible to
ensure that excessive costs are not imposed on our rural
communities.
Third, the Role of Science--does the science justify new
standards and the costs of those standards. If there are costs
to be imposed, we need to make sure that the underlying
decision to create any new standard is correct--based on the
best available science. I think we need to know more about
EPA's methodology for establishing drinking water standards,
and in particular, EPA's ``IRIS'' system.
Fourth, our Nation's serious infrastructure needs. As
Senator Inhofe has articulated, we have an aging infrastructure
in this Nation. Our water infrastructure is, in many cases,
being used well beyond intended lifespans. I am interested in
learning more about the impact of our aging infrastructure on
our ability to ensure safe drinking water.
Thank you.
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