[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 25 (Thursday, February 25, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S797]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. INHOFE (for himself, Mr. Crapo, Mr. Risch, Mr. Barrasso, 
        and Mr. Vitter):
  S. 3038. A bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to prevent the 
enforcement of certain national primary drinking water regulations 
unless sufficient funding is available; to the Committee on Environment 
and Public Works.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce The Small System 
Drinking Water Act of 2009. This is the third Congress that I have 
introduced this bill which would assist water systems throughout the 
country comply with the ever growing number of federal drinking water 
standards. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Mike Crapo, James 
Risch, John Barrasso and David Vitter as cosponsors of this 
legislation. My bill will require the Federal Government to live up to 
its obligations and require the EPA to use the tools it was given in 
the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments, SDWA.
  My goal here is to ensure that small towns across the country have 
safe, affordable drinking water and that the laws are fair to small and 
rural communities. Currently EPA assumes that families can afford water 
rates of 2.5 percent of their annual median household income, or $1,000 
per household. For some families, paying $83 a month for water may not 
be a hardship but for so many more, it is nearly impossible. There must 
be some flexibility inserted into the calculation that factors in the 
ability of the truly disadvantaged to pay these costs. Forcing systems 
to raise rates beyond what their ratepayers can afford only causes more 
damage than good.
  EPA needs to look more closely at how it determines affordability. My 
bill directs EPA to take additional factors into consideration when 
making this determination. These include ensuring that the 
affordability criteria are not more costly on a per-capita basis to a 
small water system than to a large water system.
  In EPA's most recent drinking water needs survey, Oklahoma identified 
a total of over $4.1 billion in drinking water needs over the next 20 
years. $2.4 billion of that need is for community water systems that 
serve fewer than 10,000 people. The $4.1 billion does not include the 
total costs imposed on Oklahoma communities to meet federal clean water 
requirements, the new Groundwater rule, the DBP II rule or the Long 
Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule. Oklahoma continues to 
have municipalities struggling with the 2002 arsenic rule. Many of our 
small systems are having difficulty with the Disinfection Byproducts, 
DBP, Stage I rule, and small systems who purchase water from other 
systems and did not have to test, treat or monitor their water must now 
comply with DBP II. EPA estimates that over the next 20 years, the 
entire country will need $52.0 billion to come into compliance with 
existing, proposed or recently promulgated regulations.
  My bill proposes a few simple steps to help systems comply with all 
these rules. First, it reauthorizes the technical assistance program in 
the Safe Drinking Water Act. The DBP rules are very complex and involve 
a lot of monitoring and testing. If we are going to impose complicated 
requirements on systems, we need to provide them with help to implement 
those requirements.
  The bill creates a pilot program to demonstrate new technologies and 
approaches for systems of all sizes to comply with these complicated 
rules. It requires the EPA to convene a working group to examine the 
science behind the rules in order to compare new developments since 
each rule's publication.
  Section 1412(b)(4)(E) of the SDWA Amendments of 1996 authorizes the 
use of point of entry treatment, point of use treatment and package 
plants to economically meet the requirements of the Act. However, to 
date, these approaches are not widely used by small water systems. My 
legislation directs the EPA to convene a working group to identify 
barriers to the use of these approaches. The EPA will then use the 
recommendations of the working group to draft a model guidance document 
that states can use to create their own programs.
  Most importantly this bill requires the federal government to pay for 
these unfunded mandates created by laws and regulations. In 1995, 
Congress passed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act to ensure that the 
Federal Government pays the costs incurred by State and local 
governments in complying with Federal laws. My bill is designed to 
ensure that EPA cannot take an enforcement action against a system 
serving less than 10,000 people, without first ensuring that it has 
sufficient funds to meet the requirements of the regulation.
  Since the 108th Congress, I have coauthored and cosponsored 
legislation to provide additional resources to communities through the 
State Revolving Loan Funds. Unfortunately, not much has changed. We 
still have too many regulations and not enough money to pay for them. 
Funding legislation is important but until that money becomes 
available, it is unreasonable to penalize and fine local communities 
because they cannot afford to pay for regulations we imposed on them. I 
thank my colleagues and look forward to their support of this 
commonsense proposal.
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