[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 89 (Wednesday, June 29, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7616-S7617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. JEFFORDS (for himself and Mr. Sarbanes):
  S. 1328. A bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure that 
the District of Columbia and States are provided a safe, lead-free 
supply of drinking water; to the Committee on Environment and Public 
Works.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Lead-Free 
Drinking Water Act of 2005 with my colleague Senator Sarbanes. We are 
joined by our colleagues, Congresswoman Norton, Congressman Waxman, and 
others, who will be introducing the House companion bill today. Today, 
we introduce this bill for the second time.
  Last year, we shared the shock felt by DC residents when it was first 
reported that lead levels in the DC public water system were 
significantly higher than Federal guidelines, and had been so for at 
least 2 years.
  We sought answers to the same questions everyone was asking 
themselves--How much water did I drink? How much water did my children 
drink? What are the effects of lead in our bloodstream?
  We shared the outrage felt by many DC residents, asking ourselves--
why were we not told about this sooner? How did this happen? What are 
we going to do about it?
  In the 108th Congress, we attempted to answer those questions. We 
held a hearing in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and 
listened to the concerns of DC parents worried about their children's 
health.
  We listened to experts who identified weaknesses in the Safe Drinking 
Water Act and the lead and copper rule, governing how the public is 
informed when lead is present in a drinking water system and what 
corrective actions public water systems must take.
  One of the most disturbing points is that many of the things that 
happened in Washington, DC, were within the boundaries of the existing 
rules that purport to protect the public from lead in drinking water.
  We responded by introducing the Lead-Free Drinking Water Act of 2004, 
which sought to correct the weaknesses in those rules.
  Today, we are reintroducing the Lead-Free Drinking Water Act of 2005.

[[Page S7617]]

Our bill will overhaul the Safe Drinking Water Act to strengthen the 
Federal rules governing lead testing and regulations in our public 
water systems to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--infants, 
children, pregnant women, and new moms--are not harmed by lead in 
drinking water.
  Specifically, the bill requires the EPA to reevaluate the current 
regulatory structure to figure out if it really provides the level of 
public health protection required.
  The bill calls on the EPA to establish a maximum contaminant level 
for lead at the tap, and if that is not practical given the presence of 
lead inside home plumbing systems, the bill requires EPA to reevaluate 
the current action level for lead to ensure that vulnerable populations 
such as infants, children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers receive 
adequate protection.
  I look forward to working with EPA on this evaluation to determine 
which approach is most feasible and which provides the greatest level 
of public health protection.
  EPA has three choices: keep current standard, an ``action level'' at 
15 parts per billion; lower the current action level below 15 parts per 
billion; establish a ``maximum contaminant load.''
  For example, it is clear that a maximum contaminant level, which is 
measured at the water treatment plant, would do little to protect 
people from lead-contaminated drinking water at their faucets. Our bill 
requires that standards be measured at the tap.
  A low lead action level measured at the tap could provide more 
protection than a high MCL measured anywhere in the system if there 
were extremely strong and effective public notification procedures in 
place.
  Public notice is the key to success of any lead regulation--parents 
say to me, ``If only I had known, I could have protected my family.'' 
It is our job to be sure the public notice system we have in place gets 
people the information they need when they need it.
  The bill will require information such as the number of homes tested, 
the lead levels found, the areas of the community in which they were 
located, and the disproportionate adverse health effects of lead on 
infants, be made public immediately upon detection of lead.
  In addition, the bill requires that, as part of routine testing 
conducted, any residents whose homes test high for lead receive 
notification and appropriate medical referrals within 14 days.
  Finally, we don't want the day of an exceedance to be the first time 
people have heard about lead in drinking water. The bill establishes a 
basic public education program to ensure that people have a basic 
understanding that lead may be present in drinking water and what the 
corrective actions might be even before their water system detects a 
problem.
  The bill requires increased water testing and lead remediation in 
schools and day-care centers nationwide. This provision exists in law 
today, but it was affected by previous litigation. This bill corrects 
the problem by requiring the Administrator to execute this program if 
states choose not to. It is wholly unacceptable to do anything less 
than provide a learning environment for our next generation that does 
not degrade their intellectual capacity. Our bill provides $150 million 
over 5 years for this program.
  And we strengthen existing requirements to ensure that all lead 
service lines will be replaced by a public water system at a rate of 10 
percent per year until they are gone.
  This is common sense--let us get rid of the lead in our systems and 
get rid of the lead in our water.
  Our bill makes water systems responsible for replacing lead service 
lines, including the privately owned sections, once a system exceeds 
lead standards. Homeowners have the final say in whether their line is 
replaced.
  We provide $1 billion over 5 years for lead service line replacement.
  The EPA estimates that our Nation needs $265 billion to maintain and 
improve its drinking water infrastructure over the next 20 years.
  If we do not address this, we will be facing more and more health and 
environmental issues as our Nation's water infrastructure degrades.
  Lead service lines are only one part of the picture. Leaded solder 
was banned in 1987. However, ``lead-free'' plumbing fixtures are 
currently allowed to have 8 percent lead.
  Our bill makes ``lead-free'' mean lead-free. It defines the term as 
trace amounts of lead -0.2 percent. It prohibits the use of pipes, or 
pipe or plumbing fitting or fixtures that are ``high lead'' which our 
bill defines as 2.0 percent lead within 1 year. And within 5 years, it 
prohibits the use of any plumbing components with anymore than 0.2 
percent lead. This is a huge step toward making our water systems truly 
lead-free.
  Our bill strengthens existing requirements for leaching by requiring 
independent third-party performance certification.
  Finally, our bill requires that the existing requirements for 
leaching be revised to be as protective as the existing leaching 
standards in California which have set the bar for plumbing fittings 
and fixtures.
  We urge our colleagues to support this legislation.
  Last year, Good Housekeeping independently ran a piece about the 
Lead-Free Drinking Water Act and gave its readers information to 
contact us with their support. We received over a thousand responses 
from individual readers in 48 States and the District of Columbia.
  In the 18th century, almost 300 years ago, Ben Franklin concluded 
that lead was poisonous. In a biography written by Edmund S. Morgan, 
this story is recounted:
  At the request of his friend and English publisher Benjamin Vaughan, 
he wrote out a proof of what he had once casually mentioned in 
conversation: his conclusion that lead was poisonous. After detailing 
his own and other printers' ailments from the continuous handling of 
lead type, he went on to describe his observations of the grass and 
plants that died from the fumes near furnaces where lead was smelted, 
of the effects of drinking rainwater that sluiced off lead roofs, and 
of his queries to sickened plumbers, painters, and glaziers in a Paris 
hospital. His observations of the toxic effects of lead, he noted, were 
nothing new; and he remarked wryly, ``how long a useful Truth may be 
known, and exist, before it is generally receiv'd and practis'd on.''
  We have known lead is a poison for centuries. What are we waiting 
for? As we learned from the incidents in Washington, DC, and Boston, 
there are large deficiencies in Federal safe drinking water 
regulations. It is time to plug the holes in these regulations and 
fully protect the public from this poison. It is time to get the lead 
out.
  Safe drinking water is not a privilege; it is a right--whether you 
live in Washington, DC, or Washington State or Washington County, VT.
  I urge my colleagues to join us in working to pass the Lead-Free 
Drinking Water Act of 2005 to get the lead out of our pipes, out of our 
water, out of our families, and out of our lives.
                                 ______