[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 12 (Monday, January 22, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 WATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, today, all over Capitol Hill people 
are preparing for the State of the Union speech. Iraq, global warming, 
health care are all at the top of everyone's list. One that, 
unfortunately, will be suspiciously absent is the topic of a conference 
that is taking place just across the Potomac River, the third National 
Dialogue on Water Resources. Yet there is nothing that is more 
important than the discussion about water. Indeed, if you are talking 
about war and peace, climate change and health care, they are all 
directly related.
  Water is not just a potential source of conflict, but of conflict 
resolution. You can actually measure water flows in quality. If the 
Israelies and the Palestinians can solve their water issues, who knows 
where it could lead.
  Health. One-half the people in the world today who are sick are sick 
due to water-borne disease, almost all of which is preventable.
  Global warming. We are concerned about global warming because of the 
impacts that are directly water-related: rising ocean levels, coastal 
erosion, storm surges, disappearing snow pack and polar ice, flooding, 
rainstorms; too much water too little water in the wrong places at the 
wrong time. Global warming is all about water.
  It is my hope that regardless of what is discussed in the State of 
the Union and thereafter, that we can add this subject to the top of 
the list of the 110th Congress, to work with the administration and 
people on both sides of the aisle to build on one of the few areas of 
bipartisan progress that we have seen in the recent toxic atmosphere on 
the House floor.
  In the 108th Congress, we were able to work to reform the flood 
insurance programs, before Katrina. In the 109th Congress, we had the 
landmark Water For the Poor Act that I was able to work on with 
Republicans Henry Hyde and Senator Bill Frist.
  There are some simple steps that we can take now. I hope that Chair 
Lowey and Ranking Member Wolf will fund our international water and 
sanitation commitments. I hope that out of the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee we will update the hopelessly outmoded Corps 
of Engineers water principles and guidelines that are over a quarter 
century old and lead to bad decisions. I hope that we can continue 
Chair Frank's commitment to further flood insurance reform.
  Others are going to take more of a lift, but we can use water supply 
and quality in the farm bill to pay farmers to do the right thing and 
make a profound difference on water around the country. We can shift 
our frame of reference to deal with basin-wide water management; and we 
can use the huge value implicit in water resources to fund our crying 
needs.
  At core, Madam Speaker, it is time for us to match our policies on 
where the water comes from, which date back to the beginning of our 
country and were basically frozen in place by 1950, to overlap with our 
water quality and environmental and health protections which have been 
developed largely since that time.
  Money is actually less of a problem because, while water is 
priceless, we are doing silly things with it; for example, subsidizing 
people to grow cotton in the desert. When we have an era where for 
bottled water, some people are paying up to $8 a gallon or more, we are 
paying more than gasoline or cheap wine, there are ways that we can tap 
into that value. We spend too much on uncoordinated infrastructure 
investments with inappropriate pricing, poor planning and incremental 
fragmented management.
  We have the possibility to refine those partnerships, both public and 
private, to bring together the Federal agencies, even Congress itself, 
to limit our stovepipe mentality with fewer subcommittees and more 
policy management. It is not really that hard. College students, 
farmers, local government officials, Girl Scouts and church youth 
groups understand these basic principles after the most basic of study. 
It is time for the rest of the players to catch up with them, and I 
hope starting with the 110th Congress.

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