[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 5, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H8889-H8890]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 FOLLOW THE WILL OF CONGRESS: REMOVE MEXICAN SEWAGE FROM U.S. SOIL AND 
                                 WATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell my colleagues about an 
incredible situation that is going on in my district in San Diego, 
California. I have running through my district 50 million gallons of 
raw sewage a day. I doubt that any congressperson in America could say 
that, 50 million gallons of raw sewage coming through his or her 
district.
  This is because of the nature of the geography in southern California 
and the unfortunate situation that our sister city across the Mexican 
border, Tijuana, does not have facilities to treat all its sewage, so 
sewage which is untreated eventually finds its way into the Tijuana 
River Valley, across my district and then empties into the Pacific 
Ocean. It is a terrible environmental problem which both countries are 
trying to solve.
  I have worked on this problem for over a decade as a member of the 
San Diego City Council and as a member of this Congress. We found a 
win-win-win way to deal with this issue that had been plaguing us for 
50 years.
  A joint U.S.-Mexico private firm made a proposal to build a sewage 
treatment plant using the most advanced environmental techniques to 
build such a plant in Mexico where the water could be treated to a 
level that could be reclaimed for agriculture, commercial or even 
drinking use, which Mexico desperately needs, and this treatment would 
be paid for by the United States government.
  It is the citizens of this country that are being affected by the 
potential disease and the environmental problems. So we thought, given 
the situation, that a private firm working with both countries could 
not only treat the sewage, but solve the U.S. environmental problem, 
and help recycle water to Mexico.
  My former colleague and I, Mr. Bilbray, convinced this Congress that 
such a plan was workable, and, in fact, this Congress a year ago passed 
a law, Public Law 106-457, to do exactly what I just outlined, to solve 
a 50-year-old problem. Title VIII of that law authorized the 
International Boundary and Water Commission to begin negotiations with 
Mexico to provide for the treatment of Mexican sewage that flows into 
the United States. This Congress decided that unanimously.
  Recently, the new commissioner that was appointed by President Bush 
for the International Boundary and Water Commission, Mr. Carlos Ramirez 
from El Paso, decided on his own, without talking to any of us here in 
Congress, ignoring decades of litigation by environmental groups, 
ignoring all the work that had been done by the political leaders, 
local, State and Federal, in San Diego and in Mexico, repeatedly said 
recently in public meetings and to the press that that law had no 
force, that he was not required to, in fact, undertake those 
negotiations and build the treatment plant mandated by Congress. In 
fact, he said we are going to do it with an expensive process that this 
Congress and our whole border community rejected a decade ago.
  I do not know why the new commissioner started off his work in this 
fashion. I offered to meet with him. No meeting could be arranged, but 
I took this problem to the chairman of the subcommittee that had worked 
out this legislation a year ago, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Duncan), and he agreed to hold an oversight

[[Page H8890]]

hearing on the implementation of the law that required the sewage 
treatment plant to be built cooperatively with Mexico.
  This hearing will be scheduled for this Wednesday, December 12. I 
hope that the administration spokesman, Mr. Ramirez, his employer, the 
State Department, the Office of Management and Budget will explain why 
a law that was passed by Congress a year ago has not been implemented.
  This law is environmentally sound. It is good for the taxpayers of 
this Nation. It solves a problem that has been with us for 50 years. 
What Mr. Ramirez wants to do is treat half the problem, do it more 
expensively and in an environmentally insensitive way. I do not 
understand that at all, and I am glad the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Duncan) agrees with me that he should explain this to Congress.
  So we will have this oversight hearing which is the role of Congress 
to have. It is about time the International Boundary and Water 
Commission followed the will of this Congress.

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