[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 92 (Wednesday, June 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H5683-H5684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             CLEANER WATER

  (Mrs. SEASTRAND asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute, to revise and extend her remarks, and to include 
extraneous matter.)
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. Mr. Speaker, last week the Santa Maria Times, a local 
newspaper in my district on the central coast of California, let the 
Sun shine on some of the arguments big government groups and the 
Clinton administration had made against our clean [[Page H5684]] water 
bill, which will give local communities more flexibility to solve their 
water problems. I quote:

       When courting small business and voters frustrated by 
     government, the Clinton administration decries ``regulatory 
     overkill,'' yet whenever anyone proposes actually loosening 
     any particular Federal dictate, the Administration balks. 
     Thus, the rewrite of the Clean Water Act passed 240 to 185 by 
     the House of Representatives, with votes from 45 Democrats. 
     It has inspired the President's most demagogic rhetoric in 
     weeks.

  Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Santa Maria Times editorial, which 
continues to point out that groups such as the National Governors 
Association, which the President once headed, the National League of 
Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Association of 
Metropolitan Sewer Agencies, all endorse this legislation. Let us 
finish with the hard rhetoric and continue with clean water for our 
local communities.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article of June 1, 1995, in 
the Santa Maria Times:
               [From the Santa Maria Times, June 1, 1995]

                        Dirty Fight, Clean Water

       When courting small business and voters frustrated by 
     government, the Clinton administration decries ``regulatory 
     overkill.'' Its touted blueprint for ``reinventing 
     government'' prescribes a periodic weeding out of cumulative, 
     obsolete, inconsistent and unnecessary regulations.
       Yet whenever anyone proposes actually loosening any 
     particular federal diktat, the administration balks. Thus, 
     the rewrite of the Clean Water Act passed 240-185 by the 
     House of Representatives recently (with votes from 45 
     Democrats) has inspired the president's most demagogic 
     rhetoric in weeks.
       At a propaganda event staged in Washington, D.C.'s Rock 
     Creek Park, Bill Clinton caricatured the bill as written by 
     ``the lobbyists who represent the polluters.'' The bill's 
     effect, he said, would be to put ``poisons'' in the water our 
     children drink.
       It is hard--make that impossible--to believe that the 
     National Governors Association (which Clinton once headed), 
     the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors 
     and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies all 
     would knowingly endorse legislation so blatantly contrary to 
     the public good. The bill the president vows to veto must 
     have flaws but it cannot be the piece of unconscionable 
     recklessness that the president so irresponsibly described.
       Who are these polluters, for example? They are city 
     dwellers, mall shoppers, users of roads and parking lots, and 
     farmers. The major outstanding water issue is known as 
     ``nonpoint'' pollution, the dirt that ends up in sewers and 
     streams not because some profit-hungry corporation dumps it 
     there but because rain water washes it off fields and parking 
     lots and city streets.
       Those striving to provide citizens safe drinking water and 
     fishable and swimmable rivers and lakes are local 
     governments. These are the same counties and municipalities 
     that are stretched thin meeting increased demands for 
     neglected children's services and economic development, road 
     and bridge repair, police, courts and prisons. Nothing is 
     gained by pretending that resources are infinite for any of 
     these priorities, even clean water.
       Admirably, the House bill nearly doubles the federal 
     revolving loan fund to help local authorities pay for sewage 
     treatment. Its major thrust is to give states more 
     flexibility in regulating storm water and other runoff from 
     the landscape. It does not alter standards for the purity of 
     water people drink.
       Whether this bill has found the optimal definition for 
     wetlands we are not prepared to say. That and the other 
     issues will be tackled anew by the Senate. They will be 
     tackled it appears, without constructive input from a 
     president busy with scare tactics as his re-election campaign 
     nears.
     

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