[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 59 (Friday, May 13, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1994

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I do not see other Senators seeking 
recognition. I urge them to come over and offer amendments. The 
managers are ready to deal with other amendments. Staff is here on the 
floor ready to work through and review amendments.
  I remind Senators that under the agreement the Senate entered into 
last night, there are over 100 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water 
Act that we must work through, one way or another, between now and the 
close of business Wednesday.
  I remind Senators that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 
cure; the early bird gets the worm. Now is the time to come over and 
offer amendments, because there may not be much time as we get closer 
to the deadline. I strongly urge Senators to come over and offer them 
now.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Madam President, I join in that plea by the floor manager 
of the bill, the chairman of the committee.
  Here we are, ready to do business--the store is open-- and we have 
all these amendments. If people do not intend to present them, then at 
least it would be helpful if they could tell us that, and then we could 
cross them off.
  But, as the chairman mentioned, there are, I guess, close to 100 
amendments. That is not a world's record, but it is getting close to 
it. I think most of them probably are not going to be pursued, but we 
do not know that.
  As the majority leader has pointed out, we are going to finish this 
bill Wednesday night. The question is whether it is going to be at 3 
a.m. Thursday morning, or whether we can move along in an orderly 
process here and get the work done.
  We are going to be here today; we are going to be here Monday.
  So, as the children say, ``Olly, olly in free''--bring over the 
amendments and let us deal with them one way or another. The store is 
open, as I say, for business.
  Otherwise, if nobody comes, we will close shop. So if anybody has 
something, I wish they would come over or let us know.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I must say, my good friend, the Senator 
from Rhode Island, makes a good point.
  If Senators do not come over, we are going to close up shop. So 
Senators should not think, ``Well, gee; we are going to wait for 
another hour to come over.''
  If no Senators come over and offer amendments very shortly, we are 
going to close up shop and Senators will be precluded from offering 
amendments today.
  I urge Senators to come over now.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The absence of a quorum has been 
suggested. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 
printed in the Record an editorial in today's Washington Post entitled 
``Good Sense on Drinking Water.''
  I think it is a good editorial, Madam President. I guess I say that, 
in part, because I agree with it. That, in part, makes it good. But it 
is good because it essentially says that this legislation before us 
strikes a good balance. It is a good balance to help protect public 
health.
  There are a lot of different points of view on how we should modify 
the Safe Drinking Water Act. There are some in the environmental 
community who would like much higher standards. There are other 
groups--developers, agriculture groups--that would like us not to go 
very far. This bill is a balance, and we all know the legislative 
process. If we want to accomplish our objective by advancing the ball, 
improving upon the status quo, there has to be some compromise. There 
has to be some agreement on all sides to back off a little bit from 
their position in order to advance the common good. That is what this 
bill does.
  I would like to read a couple of paragraphs which I think get at the 
heart of what we are trying to do. The last two paragraphs of this 
morning's editorial in the Washington Post:

       What you basically have here is a deal between the 
     environmentalists and the regulated community. Neither side 
     is completely happy with it, but both have basically agreed 
     to the terms. So have the leading members of both parties on 
     the Environment and Public Works Committee, and so has the 
     administration. Major amendments are threatened even so. Why?
       One of the subjects is unfunded mandates. The unfunded 
     mandate argument has been threatened or used to stall a 
     number of environmental bills in this Congress. But in this 
     case the State and local people have now pretty much declared 
     themselves content.

  That is, content with this legislation.

       There is also a threatened amendment with regard to the 
     ``takings'' issue: When do Federal or other regulatory 
     actions constitute takings of private property? That issue, 
     too, has been raised and used to stall environmental bills in 
     this Congress, but it has little to do with safe drinking 
     water.

  I might add, Madam President, that is true. The so-called takings 
issue has virtually nothing to do with safe drinking water legislation.

       The sponsors of these amendments complain about regulatory 
     excess, but this is a balanced bill that seeks to curb such 
     excess while at the same time, adhering to basic goals. The 
     objectors should let it pass.

  I might add, Madam President, I think there is more than a kernel of 
truth in that statement, that is, some of the concerns some people have 
about unfunded mandates, about takings, about risk assessment are 
legitimate. Those are very legitimate issues. But it is difficult, and 
probably unwise, to pass sweeping legislation that deals with all the 
unfunded mandate questions, or all of the takings questions, or all of 
the risk assessment questions.
  Rather, it makes more sense to deal with those questions as each 
major bill comes up, particularly as each environmental bill comes up. 
And here we are; with the safe drinking water we addressed the issue of 
the unfunded mandate by providing a new State revolving fund, new 
dollars, $600 million authorized the first year, $1 billion for the 
next several years up to the year 2000, and we are dramatically 
reforming the mandates. The mandates are not nearly as onerous and 
burdensome as they might be.
  With respect to risk assessment, we have major provisions on 
contaminant selection and standards setting that begin to deal with 
risk assessment. Risk assessment is just one of the several tools, 
Madam President, in our environmental toolbox as we deal with 
environmental issues. We have technology standards. We have performance 
standards. We have health base standards. Risk assessment is another 
appropriate mechanism.
  An analogy could be with our trade laws. We have lots of arrows in 
our international trade quiver. We have section 301 to address 
countries' barriers to American trade as we attempt to sell products in 
foreign countries.
  We have special 301. Special 301 says to countries that are violating 
American intellectual property rights or intellectual property 
provisions, copyright, and so forth, that we will begin to take action 
with respect to those violations.
  We have another arrow in our trade quiver, and that is countervailing 
duty measures. When a country dumps its products in America, we can 
take action countervailing duty assessment on those products.
  Well, the same is true in environmental areas. Risk assessment is 
another tool we can use in the proper circumstances and we should 
tailor it to various bills because the Safe Drinking Water Act is 
different from the Clean Air Act, and so forth. They are all different. 
It makes sense to deal with risks appropriately as we deal with 
different environmental problems.
  The same is true with takings. The Safe Drinking Water Act is not a 
takings matter. It has nothing to do with takings. I think it is wise 
when we deal with the takings question--and we will--that it more 
appropriately lies in the context of maybe the Clean Water Act, or 
maybe in the context of the Endangered Species Act; a little less so in 
the context of Superfund because that is really not a takings issue, 
either.
  I urge us all to work together in a balanced way to deal 
appropriately with these issues. The editorial in this morning's 
Washington Post urges us to take that course.
  There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, May 13, 1994]

                      Good Sense on Drinking Water

       In the Reagan years, Congress would often overwrite a bill 
     in an effort to force the administration to do something it 
     didn't want to do. The safe drinking water legislation passed 
     in 1986 is an example. Though the act did a lot of good, in 
     retrospect many people also think it was overly prescriptive; 
     neither the federal regulators nor the regulated state and 
     local governments were given much discretion.
       The Senate is now trying to revise that legislation in a 
     way that will both perpetuate its virtues and correct its 
     flaws. The carefully written measure on the floor deserves to 
     pass--and should not be weighted down with threatened 
     amendments that have nothing to do with its basic purposes.
       The complaint of state and local officials has been that 
     the drinking water act requires them to do too much--often 
     more than was necessary to make water safe--while giving them 
     too little aid. In fact the feds have been giving state and 
     local governments large amounts of money over the years to 
     help build drinking water treatment plants. The funds have 
     come through rural development and community development 
     block grants. The bill would add to these a system of state 
     drinking water revolving funds. It would also slightly ease 
     the drinking water standards in ways that please the 
     governors and mayors but that the environmentalists can 
     apparently also live with. One change, for example, would be 
     from a standard of no adverse effects to a ``reasonable 
     certainty of no harm;'' that hardly sounds like the opening 
     to an epidemic. The bill as drawn would also require states 
     to set up so-called ``source protection'' programs, the 
     sensible theory being that it's often cheaper to protect 
     drinking water at its source than to let it get dirty and 
     then have to pay to clean it up.
       What you basically have here is a deal between the 
     environmentalists and the regulated community. Neither side 
     is completely happy with it, but both have basically agreed 
     to the terms. So have the leading members of both parties on 
     the Environment and Public Works Committee, and so has the 
     administration. Major amendments are threatened even so. Why?
       One of the subjects is unfunded mandates. The unfunded 
     mandate argument has been threatened or used to stall a 
     number of environmental bills in this Congress. But in this 
     case the state and local people have now pretty much declared 
     themselves content. There is also a threatened amendment with 
     regard to the ``takings'' issue: When do federal or other 
     regulatory actions constitute takings of private property? 
     That issue, too, has been raised and used to stall 
     environmental bills in this Congress, but it has little to do 
     with safe drinking water. The sponsors of these amendments 
     complain about regulatory excess, but this is a balanced bill 
     that seeks to curb such excess while at the same time 
     adhering to basic goals. The objectors should let it pass.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I also remind Senators that we have time 
here now to take amendments. The floor is clear. There is no Senator 
here wishing to offer an amendment. There could not be a better time 
for a Senator to bring up an amendment that he or she would like to see 
considered than now, because the way is clear, no impediments, nobody 
standing on the floor seeking recognition for any other purpose.
  Again, I urge Senators to come to the floor. I know at some times it 
is a futile plea, but I would love to be surprised and have a Senator 
show up so that I am reassured that in some cases this plea is not 
futile.
  Hope springs eternal, Madam President. I am very hopeful that some 
Senator will, in his or her wisdom, offer an amendment.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum has been suggested. 
The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, we are going to close up shop on the 
bill. No Senators have come to the floor to offer amendments.
  I urge Senators, though, to send their staff over to the committee so 
that the staff can work out some of the amendments that Senators might 
have.
  I further urge Senators to be prepared to bring amendments to the 
floor when we resume consideration of this bill on Monday. We will be 
on the bill Monday afternoon. There will be no votes on Monday. That 
means there is a great opportunity for Senators to bring up amendments 
that otherwise might be more difficult to bring up as we get closer to 
the deadline; namely, Wednesday.
  I again urge Senators to work with our committee staff to work out 
solutions to the potential amendments.

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