[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S8671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RURAL COMMUNITY ARSENIC RELIEF ACT

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to address an issue that is just now 
emerging in rural America, but one that is important and has the 
potential to devastate, economically, small cities and towns across the 
inter-mountain West--like in my State, of Idaho.
  The new Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standard of 10 
parts per billion for arsenic is something the current Administration 
inherited from the prior Administration and is now trying to implement. 
I would remind my colleagues, however, that the new lowered arsenic 
standard was not universally supported in Congress when it was 
proposed.
  There were Senators--not many, but I was certainly one of them--that 
knew that the cost of complying with the new arsenic standard was going 
to cripple economically--was going to break the back financially--of 
rural communities and small towns across the western United States.
  I fought this new standard on the floor of the Senate. I knew the 
costs were crippling and the health benefit was bogus. I also knew that 
the science to support the lower standard is being exposed as based on 
examples and sample populations that were very, very flawed. The 
science is now revealing that extrapolating from those sample 
communities to the whole of the United States was a very, very flawed 
basis for the drinking water standard.
  I fought this new standard, but I did not succeed.
  There are communities now in Idaho that will not be able to come into 
compliance with this new standard by the time it takes effect. Some of 
these Idaho communities have estimated that it would take double or 
triple their entire city budget, just to try to come into compliance--
and that would mean that no other city services could be paid for.
  That kind of situation is clearly ridiculous, and I will fight as 
long and as hard as I can to find solutions to this problem.
  For example, this past March I discussed this issue with EPA 
Administrator Mike Leavitt. Mike Leavitt is a Westerner--his folks in 
Utah are having some of the same problems.
  I discussed that with him and I think he will try to be reasonable. I 
will keep discussing it with him. The problem is that EPA bureaucrats--
who are so good at being bureaucrats--think they know Idaho better than 
Idahoans do. Some of our Idaho communities have requested of EPA Region 
10 that EPA exercise some flexibility with this standard. This is 
flexibility that EPA has already incorporated into its final agency 
rule on the arsenic standard.
  Unfortunately, EPA bureaucrats are doing what they are good at. They 
are saying no to flexibility and hey, by the way, Castleford, Idaho or 
New Plymouth, Idaho--this won't disadvantage you economically as much 
as you say. That is what EPA says to the communities of Idaho. We know 
better than you.
  Seeing that EPA cannot be reasonable, I have worked with my 
colleagues Senator Nelson of Nebraska and Senator Domenici of New 
Mexico. Both of their States have similar problems. The product of our 
collaboration is the bill we are introducing today.
  With this bill, we are trying to force States--and in Idaho's case, 
the EPA since Idaho is what they call a ``non-primacy state''--to 
approve requests from communities to delay their compliance with the 
new arsenic standard.
  The bill is straightforward, it is vital, and it is needed. It will 
save some of these communities from bankruptcy or from discontinuing 
essential community services. Many other states--other than Idaho, 
Nebraska, and New Mexico--face this same crisis. I implore my 
colleagues to learn about what their small communities are facing, and 
to join with us in enacting this essential regulatory relief.

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