[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 190 (Thursday, November 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17846-S17847]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate passed S. 1316, the 
Safe Drinking Water Act. I did not have the opportunity to speak on it 
while it was under consideration and I want to point out some things in 
that bill that I believe are very constructive.
  I will call to the attention of my colleagues that I think we passed 
a piece of legislation that will enhance voters' confidence, citizens' 
confidence, that we can, in fact, take a law that has accomplished a 
great deal.
  The Safe Drinking Water Act has improved the quality of life in 
America considerably, and has been a great success story, but it needed 
to be changed. There was an urgent need to change the legislation. We 
passed it last year in this body. The House was unable to pass a piece 
of legislation, and as a consequence it died.
  I want to thank Chairman John Chafee. He was very instrumental. 
Without his leadership this bill would not have passed. Chairman 
Kempthorne, as well, was very diligent and determined to pass the 
legislation. Senator Baucus, Senator Reid, both from rural States, 
understand the importance of changing this legislation. They, like me, 
have heard from local communities talking about if we are going to 
maintain the consent to regulate safe drinking water that we have to 
change the current law.
  I will talk about a few issues, Mr. President. I will go through them 
real quickly. First is the issue of radon in the drinking water. Under 
the current law, the EPA was required to promulgate a standard for 
radon by a court-ordered deadline.
  Unfortunately, that standard was a much higher standard than any 
scientist said was necessary to protect the people. There is no dispute 
here. This is not a situation where we have anybody coming forward and 
saying that the standard that was required under this rule was too low.
  This standard was set so high that it was going to cost rural 
communities, in some cases, $5,000 per user to implement. We had 
withheld the appropriations for several years to promulgate this rule, 
and this piece of legislation now will take the appropriators off the 
hook. It changes the law. It gives EPA the authority to promulgate a 
rule of 3,000 picocuries per liter, which is what all science is saying 
is needed. It will save rural providers of water in Nebraska nearly $1 
billion over a 7- to 10-year period. It is a substantial amount of 
money that is at stake.
  The second issue is the current law, that is the issue of sound 
science and using sound science in evaluating both the risk and what we 
do. In the 1986 amendments, we decided we were going to regulate 25 
contaminants every 3 years whether those contaminants needed to be 
regulated or not. This strict method of establishing standards caused 
some contaminants to be regulated without a sound scientific basis. It 
is an issue that is very irritating when you are, again, at a local 
level and are required to spend money looking for a contaminant that 
has never been there. It has never been in the water. Nobody expects it 
to be in the water. Nobody has any reasonable basis to believe it is 
going to be in the water. But because of this strict standard, we were 
required to regulate it anyway.
  The new law authorizes EPA to use $10 million from the State 
revolving fund on health effects research. EPA is to establish a 
priority risk of unregulated contaminants and gather health effects and 
occurrence information on the listed contaminants. The Administrator of 
EPA must consult with the Centers for Disease Control as it does this 
analysis. In other words, it cannot just come to a regulatory 
conclusion without some reference to what our scientists, particularly 
our health scientists, are telling us about what is going on with 
drinking water. The States are to monitor for up to 20 unregulated 
contaminants to collect information for future standards.
  The next issue is the standard setting itself. Under current law, EPA 
has established standards for more than 80 drinking water contaminants. 
The 1986 amendments required EPA to promulgate 25 new standards every 3 
years. The cost to small communities, again, are not considered at all 
when these standards are set. This legislation, this change in the law, 
repeals the ``25 every 3 years'' rule and establishes a new mechanism 
to identify contaminants for future regulation by consulting with the 
Centers for Disease Control.
  Again, if we are trying to have safe drinking water, it seems to be 
reasonable to reference those individuals who have the responsibility 
for telling us what is causing Americans to get sick from drinking our 
water. EPA is to conduct a benefit-cost analysis for each new standard 
before it is promulgated, and if EPA determines the benefits of a 
standard issued under current law would not justify the cost of the 
systems that must comply with the standard, EPA must issue a less 
stringent standard that maximizes health risk reduction at a cost that 
is justified.
  I have heard people come and say we are weakening standards. We 
unquestionably are not. This is a change that will allow us, again with 
reference to what is causing Americans to get sick, if there is a 
health problem that the Centers for Disease Control--Mr. President, is 
there a limitation on time? 

[[Page S17847]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a 5-minute limitation and the Senator 
has consumed slightly over 5 minutes.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for another 5 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, this was a particularly difficult and 
important issue. The Nebraska League of Cities sent me a petition with 
60 signatures, which specifically asked the Senate to ``include 
provisions that changed the current process for setting standards to 
include public health benefits and costs as factors in determining new 
requirements.'' I will guarantee these local community leaders are not 
going to send me a letter asking me to do that if they did not have the 
support of their community to get it done. Many people have said I am 
selling out, weakening standards. You are not weakening the standards 
if the people at the local level say, ``This is what we want done.'' As 
I said at the beginning, I think there is safe drinking water 
legislation that has been a great success. But we keep getting example 
after example after example of citizens saying, ``Change the law to 
give us the flexibility so we can make more of our own decisions. We 
want to reference science. We want to reference the health people. We 
do not want to make our people sick. We want them to be able to drink 
the water and know that water is safe. But we have to have some 
flexibility to be able to do that because we are paying for this with 
property taxes.'' Most of these smaller communities are up against 
imposed lids and they have a tough time getting that job done.
  The next issue was the issue of monitoring. One of the largest costs 
of compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act is monitoring. Again, it 
comes out of the local property tax base, typically, to get this done. 
All Nebraska communities have asked that the current system be revised 
to let them test for contaminants that exist in Nebraska. Again, all. 
This is not one where there is any dissent. Every single community is 
asking that they be allowed to test for contaminants that exist in 
Nebraska.
  We may have some contaminants that Missouri does not have, and you 
may have some we do not have. You do not want to test for ours, and we 
do not want to test for yours, because it costs money. If we require 
them to test for contaminants that do not exist, again, it just 
undercuts the citizens' confidence you could ever get into an 
environment where Government can regulate, where we can collectively 
regulate for the purpose of improving the capacity of our lives.
  Let me go through this a bit. Under current law, States go through a 
waiver process to get some monitoring requirements changed. But this 
process is very expensive, it is very time consuming and it has been 
very frustrating for people at the local level. The benefits accrue to 
the local system while the costs are incurred by the States. The States 
that do have waivers have seen huge decreases in monitoring costs. 
These potential savings should be spread to all States, according to 
the example that has been set by those who have been granted the 
waivers.
  The bill says we revise the current monitoring rules for at least 12 
contaminants within 2 years. It allows the States to establish their 
own alternative monitoring requirements that may be less stringent than 
Federal monitoring requirements, provided they ensure compliance and 
enforcement of Federal health standards.
  There are other changes in this legislation having to do with ground 
water disinfection. The current law requires the promulgation of a 
mandatory ground water disinfection rule, requiring all systems to 
treat their water. This bill delays the enactment date of this rule to 
occur at the same time the States do a rulemaking as established for 
disinfectants and disinfection products.
  This legislation also helps us by authorizing some additional new 
programs: $1 billion for State revolving funds for safe drinking water; 
States provide 20 percent match. It authorizes $53 million for health 
effects research. It has been brought to my attention at the State 
level that in Nebraska there is $717 million worth of infrastructure 
needs that will have to be put in place over the next 20 years.
  The chairman of the committee, quite appropriately--I am on the VA-
HUD Committee--the chairman of the committee quite appropriately 
pointed out one of the weaknesses of this bill is that you are sort of 
promising money that is going to be there and it may not be there. We 
are authorizing more than we have. I take this opportunity to point out 
that the problem here is that we still have a growing cost of 
entitlements that erode our ability to make these kinds of investments.
  I heard yesterday the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, 
Senator Hatfield, indicates that he thinks it is likely that we are 
going to come up with a way to satisfy the requirements of the 
continuing resolution by the 14th of December--not by cutting defense, 
now that we are going to Bosnia. Nobody seems to be inclined to do 
that. But we are going to get $4 billion of savings out of entitlements 
to get the job done. And we are going to get it--and the biggest 
entitlements are going to be in health care, they are going to be in 
retirement--we are not likely to touch retirement. We should, to get 
the job done.
  I know the Senator from North Dakota wants to speak, and I will wrap 
up with this one statement having to do with a pet issue of mine. The 
cost of entitlements under the Republican budget and under the 
Democratic alternative--a group of 20 of us or so that have an 
alternative that balances the budget in 7 years as well--in either 
case, the cost of entitlements, health care and retirement, continue to 
grow and displace all other expenditures. If you think it is not a 
problem, imagine what it would be like to pass 13 appropriations bills 
if all we had was $445 billion. You say, oh, $445 billion is a lot of 
money. But $445 billion is what we would have in the year 2002 if you 
adjust for inflation.
  Gosh, the most liberal Member of this body, in the House or the 
Senate, probably would not spend less than $250 billion on defense, 
$260 billion, leaving you with $170 or $180 billion for all nondefense 
spending. I urge colleagues to look at that number because it is going 
to get tougher and tougher and tougher for us to get the job done. I, 
for one, hope, as we look for a compromise on reconciliation, not only 
will we consider adjusting the CPI down--I would go a full point--but I 
hope we look at some other adjustments that produce savings.
  I think it is reasonable to put an affluence test on all 
entitlements, including farm payments, to say, basically, we are going 
to adjust it as income goes up. I think it is reasonable for us to say 
now we have to adjust the eligibility age, both for Medicare and Social 
Security. We can hold harmless everybody over the age of 50, if that is 
what we choose to do. I think it is reasonable to phase it in. It is 
reasonable to phase those changes in. Nobody listening to this who is 
over 65, or 60, or 55, ought to think we are talking about them. But, 
unless we make that kind of a change, this baby boom generation is 
going to rank out about 2008. When we start retiring, our kids are not 
going to be willing to have their payroll taxes increased by the amount 
that is going to be necessary to pay for our Medicare and Social 
Security. We are not going to be able, I say to my colleagues--we are 
not going to be able to adjust rapidly enough to come up with the $717 
billion that Nebraska is going to need for its infrastructure 
investments or for any other thing in the appropriated accounts.
  So, Mr. President, I appreciate the additional time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.

                          ____________________