[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 168 (Friday, December 17, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H8617-H8619]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REDUCTION OF LEAD IN DRINKING WATER ACT
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(S. 3874) to amend the Safe Drinking Act to reduce lead in drinking
water.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
S. 3874
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Reduction of Lead in
Drinking Water Act''.
SEC. 2. REDUCING LEAD IN DRINKING WATER.
(a) In General.--Section 1417 of the Safe Drinking Water
Act (42 U.S.C. 300g-6) is amended--
(1) by adding at the end of subsection (a) the following:
``(4) Exemptions.--The prohibitions in paragraphs (1) and
(3) shall not apply to--
``(A) pipes, pipe fittings, plumbing fittings, or fixtures,
including backflow preventers, that are used exclusively for
nonpotable services such as manufacturing, industrial
processing, irrigation, outdoor watering, or any other uses
where the water is not anticipated to be used for human
consumption; or
``(B) toilets, bidets, urinals, fill valves, flushometer
valves, tub fillers, shower valves, service saddles, or water
distribution main gate valves that are 2 inches in diameter
or larger.''; and
(2) by amending subsection (d) to read as follows:
``(d) Definition of Lead Free.--
``(1) In general.--For the purposes of this section, the
term `lead free' means--
``(A) not containing more than 0.2 percent lead when used
with respect to solder and flux; and
``(B) not more than a weighted average of 0.25 percent lead
when used with respect to the wetted surfaces of pipes, pipe
fittings, plumbing fittings, and fixtures.
``(2) Calculation.--The weighted average lead content of a
pipe, pipe fitting, plumbing fitting, or fixture shall be
calculated by using the following formula: For each wetted
component, the percentage of lead in the component shall be
multiplied by the ratio of the wetted surface area of that
component to the total wetted surface area of the entire
product to arrive at the weighted percentage of lead of the
component. The weighted percentage of lead of each wetted
component shall be added together, and the sum of these
weighted percentages shall constitute the weighted average
lead content of the product. The lead content of the material
used to produce wetted components shall be used to determine
compliance with paragraph (1)(B). For lead content of
materials that are provided as a range, the maximum content
of the range shall be used.''.
(b) Effective Date.--The provisions of subsections (a)(4)
and (d) of section 1417 of the Safe Drinking Water Act, as
added by this section, apply beginning on the day that is 36
months after the date of the enactment of this Act.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
General Leave
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I shall
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I'm honored to manage consideration of S. 3874, the
Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act. This is the Senate companion
to Ms. Eshoo's bill, the Get the Lead Out Act. This bill will update
the national lead content standard to nearly eradicate lead in faucets
and fixtures which currently contribute up to 20 percent of human lead
exposure, according to the EPA.
In a 21st century America, we have a responsibility to do more to
protect our children and families against the lead exposure acquired
through plumbing systems. The Safe Drinking Water Act, which determines
the national lead content standards, currently allows up to 8 percent
lead content for faucets and other plumbing fixtures and limits the
amount of lead that can leach from plumbing into drinking water.
But health studies have concluded that much smaller amounts of lead
exposure can have serious impacts on children and adults, including
kidney disease, reduced IQ, hypertension, hearing loss, and brain
damage. States have recognized this threat, and in 2006, California
enacted the toughest lead content standard for drinking water faucets,
fittings, and plumbing systems anywhere in the world. Since then,
Vermont and Maryland have also adopted identical laws, and the District
of Columbia and Virginia are considering similar legislation.
{time} 1030
This bill mirrors the California legislation and will provide for a
consistent and effective national standard to ensure that no one will
be exposed to a serious health threat which can easily be avoided. This
legislation has garnered the support of State health officials,
numerous children's health organizations, prominent national
environmental organizations, local governments, scientific
associations, and national drinking water associations. The Plumbing
Manufacturers Institute, the association that represents all major
faucet companies and other manufacturers of drinking water plumbing
fittings, also supports this legislation.
On December 16, this bill passed the Senate unanimously with
bipartisan support. I urge my colleagues to vote for this critical bill
in the House today.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, good morning. I rise in opposition to Senate bill 3874
that was introduced by Barbara Boxer of California, the Reduction of
Lead in Drinking Water Act, and urge my colleagues to do likewise.
I want to be clear that simply by opposing this bill, I do not
support lead in drinking water, obviously. Let's clear the air on that.
Rather, I am opposed to the manner in which this bill tackles the
problem and, simply, Mr. Speaker, the unintended consequences that
could result. So bear with me.
This legislation lowers the Federal limit for lead allowed in the
manufacturing of certain plumbing fixtures that come into contact with
water that Americans drink. However, reports in The Washington Post and
testimony before Congress suggest that lead service lines are the
biggest culprits of leeched lead. People should not mistake this bill
as a panacea when other actions like corrosion protection and other
treatments, including some lead line replacement, have just as much, if
not more, impact on what this legislation purports to do.
Second, we need an education component to this bill. I urge my
colleagues to vote against this bill so we can get an education
component part of it. I am concerned that do-it-yourselfers, much like
me, are going to see this legislation pass, think that their existing
faucets are toxic fountains, go to their hardware store to get a new
faucet, cut their home piping, thereby releasing lead shavings into
their home's pipes, and wind up with water streaming from their faucets
with even more lead than had they just left the faucet alone.
And, third, I know many of this bill's supporters believe we need
this bill in order to prevent disparate standards among the States and
that much of the industry is either meeting the most stringent State
standards or is ready to make the move to do so. But, Mr. Speaker, I am
not convinced, though, that this bill will provide the kind of
preemption that prevents States from enacting different laws after this
bill's enactment. The 50 States could do that. If the major producers
of faucets in this country are already making the kinds of changes that
the bill seeks, and the bill does not solve this preemption problem,
then why do we have to pass a Federal bill in the first place?
And, finally, my colleagues and, importantly, the Congressional
Budget Office estimate for identical provisions in a House bill
projected the cost of the mandate in this bill, introduced by Barbara
Boxer, would be the additional costs to manufacturers, importers, or
users associated with producing or acquiring compliant products.
So based on information from industry sources, CBO wrote on July 27,
2010, to expect that some manufacturers would already be in compliance
with the new standard because of existing
[[Page H8618]]
standards in some States, for example, California, Maryland, and
Vermont: ``However, information from those sources suggest that the
incremental cost of manufacturing or importing such products would
total hundreds of millions of dollars to the private sector in at least
some of the first 5 years the mandate is in effect.'' Some of those
costs could be passed through to end users, including public entities.
While the additional cost to State, local, and tribal entities could
be significant, CBO estimates that those costs would total less than
the annual threshold established in the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act in
1995 for intergovernmental mandates.
Now what does that mean? Let me just explain. Just because it doesn't
create unfunded mandates on the United States Government doesn't mean
it is not going to create a huge amount of unfunded mandates on the
private sector. In fact, this would be a large cost for the private
sector, even though the advocates for this bill will say there is no
unfunded mandates on the government.
To be fair, the industry has challenged these figures that the
proponents of this bill have suggested, and most companies will just
simply pass their costs along in a highly competitive market. When you
look at this bill, the industry is saying that at a maximum the best
guess would be almost a 3 percent increase to consumers if and when
they need a new faucet valve or fitting. This is not the kind of
disparity that we need. We should be able to reconcile these numbers
before American jobs are challenged by this bill.
So, Mr. Speaker, there are probably some very worthy reasons to pass
this bill, including perhaps stopping bad products produced overseas
from entering the stream of U.S. commerce, and we know counterfeit
products will be provided. However, and unfortunately, the issues that
I have mentioned outweigh the good intentions of this bill that was
introduced by Barbara Boxer in California, and I would urge my
colleagues to oppose its passage.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend--and he is my good friend--that
the bill passed unanimously in the Senate. I know he likes to invoke
Senator Boxer's name a lot. But the fact of the matter is, every
Republican and every Democrat in the United States Senate supported
this bill.
I would like to make a couple of points. He talks about the lead in
the service lines. And that's true, utility companies--and we have
literally dozens of utilities that are in support of this bill--are
already constantly making efforts to get lead out of their lines. What
we are trying to do is not to make that an exercise in futility by
allowing the faucets to return the lead into the lines that they are
working so hard to take out.
We talk about preemption. Right now, the standard is 8 percent, so
that's a maximum. And the gentleman is correct: a lot of States have
gone under that 8 percent limit. But the new standard that we are
proposing, the 0.25 percent, is state of the art. That is about as low
as you can get it, based on the technology that we have available
today. So in effect, the idea that States would somehow be able to
preempt and go below that, it just isn't possible as we speak today. So
it sort of deals with the preemption issue.
The bill doesn't require people to buy replacements. No one is forced
to replace their faucets. And lastly, and dealing with the issue of
cost, I have a letter from the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute, and I
would like to quote from it. In the one paragraph dealing with cost, it
says: ``It is safe to say that this one-time cost for faucet
manufacturers will not be anywhere in the magnitude of `hundreds of
millions of dollars' as set forth in the House report for H.R. 5320,
the AQUA bill. Unfortunately, the faucet industry source for those
numbers failed to vet the calculations with the industry
representatives prior to providing the estimate to CBO. We find those
numbers to be unreliable and greatly exaggerated.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
{time} 1040
Mr. DOYLE. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.
So when you put this all together and you see that we have a piece of
legislation here which passed the Senate unanimously, and we have an
opportunity to set a national standard which is state of the art with
the technology that we have today, at a cost that the industry has said
is minimal, and many are already complying with, it seems that it would
be a shame to let this opportunity pass to protect the health of
millions of Americans by making changes that are not onerous on the
industry by their own letter, and they endorse the bill and it had
unanimous support in the Senate. I would hope that my colleagues in the
House will see fit, in a bipartisan fashion, to do this for Americans,
make people more safe, improve the quality of water that Americans
drink, and do so at a cost that is not onerous to the public or the
industry.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The gentleman will realize, of course, that oftentimes a bill has a
wonderful-sounding name on it. And bills sometimes pass here by
unanimous consent; and lo and behold, we go back and find there are
unintended consequences. I submit to the gentleman that when the Senate
passed this, they might have done that under the same auspices. And I
suspect if they looked at it carefully, particularly some of the folks
over there that I know, they would not have been in unanimous support
of this.
Also when you talk about the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute, as you
know, lots of times when people are quoted down here, there are
sometimes, and I'm not saying this is always true, but sometimes there
is vested interest in an issue. We see sometimes on the floor some
people are proponents of an issue, and lo and behold there is some
perhaps indirect, discrete, perhaps some vested interest. I have not
seen the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute letters, I am not familiar
with that, but I suspect I could find a letter on this side that would
refute the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute. In fact, we have many
people who have pointed out to us that this is going to increase cost.
So your other argument that people will not react, I have seen people
react, particularly young families who perhaps think that there might
be lead in the water with their infants, and they might overreact. And
what happens when new detection levels are achieved?
So I would say to my friend that we have here a clear case of a
difference of opinion. Here we are in 2010 before the Christmas
holidays, and we are still talking about something that I think for the
most part even you admitted it, a lot of the States are complying and
are underneath the requirement. So if that is true, why do we need the
bill? You are even making my argument of why do we need this bill that
would have unintended consequences when you admit yourself that the
States now are underneath the requirement.
I think all of us do not want to have lead in our water. All of us
believe that there is some reason for Congress to get involved and to
make sure that States comply to Federal preemption and that we also
continue to monitor this and see what the latest detection levels are.
But I submit I have been in Congress a number of years, just as you
have, and we have specified again and again requirements to not have
lead in our water. So I think at this point this bill is probably an
overstep, an overreach. And taking your own comment that a lot of the
States are underneath the requirement, I'm not sure that we need the
bill.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
I would just say to my friend that Senator Inhofe and Senator
Alexander are cosponsors of this bill. I think those two gentlemen,
very conservative gentlemen, I think my friend would agree, have looked
at the bill and are cosponsors of the bill. I would also say to my
friend that I would be happy to share a copy of my letter from the
Plumbing Manufacturers Institute with him if he would like to share a
letter that he has from anyone who contradicts this. I believe we have
shared this letter with your staff, and I hope you would look it over.
I would say to the gentleman and my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I think
we
[[Page H8619]]
should try to do the best we can do for the American people when it
comes to their health. It is true that a handful of States have already
adopted lower standards, but it is just a handful of States. We have 50
States, and over 40 still have not done this. So I think it is
important we set a national standard. This will in effect set a
national standard which uses the best technologies available to get us
as low as we can based on what we know today.
The industry has said that we can do this at minimal cost to the
industry. We force no individual to buy replacements. This is something
people can choose to do if they want to. I think most families will
take advantage of this. For the average faucet, if you look at a faucet
that is about $85, and everyone knows when you go into a store, you can
buy faucets that cost $500, and you can buy faucets that cost $30 or
$40, or anywhere in between. But if you look at the average, which is
around $80, what we are talking about is somewhere between $1.70 extra
on a faucet, so we are not talking about a big cost.
As I said, I have the industry letter, which I am happy to share with
you, saying that they think that it is a good thing, too.
So I would just say to my colleagues, let's do the best we can for
all of America. Sure, a handful of States have already taken the lead
and have gone further.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. DOYLE. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.
When people's health and safety is involved, we should never skimp on
that. If we are going to err, let's err on the side of doing the most
we can do based on the technology we have with a bill that does not put
any onerous burden on manufacturers, by their own statements, and which
many dozens of organizations and utility companies support and that has
the support of conservative Senators, cosponsors like Senator Inhofe of
Oklahoma and Senator Alexander of Tennessee, and a unanimous vote in
the Senate. Let's have a unanimous vote here in the House.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me first of all say, when you are quoting conservatives, the
former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Ranking Member
Joe Barton, is against this bill. So when you talk about who is the
spokesman in the House, Joe Barton on Energy and Commerce is the
spokesman. You serve on Energy and Commerce, so you obviously would
respect his opinion.
Also, I would say to my colleague, we are not a subcommittee of the
Senate. We are an independent body. So as much as I respect your
voicing accommodation to the Senate frequently here, I submit that the
House of Representatives is a totally different body and represents
closer to the people, the people who go to Lowe's, the people who go to
the hardware stores, and the people who don't want to have over-
regulation and are trying to create jobs in this economy.
You keep mentioning how the Senate overwhelmingly supports this bill.
I would say rhetorically to you: Did you support the tax cuts last
night? Did you support the tax cut extension? A lot of people on the
majority did not; yet in the Senate, it was overwhelmingly supported.
So oftentimes there is a different approach in the Senate than in the
House.
And I suspect if you get elected every 6 years as opposed to every 2
years, you are going to have a little more close relationship with your
constituents. You will do town meetings. You will do telephone town
meetings. Whereas if you are a U.S. Senator, perhaps you have a large
State, you will be doing it through the media. But if you are there in
a town meeting when somebody comes up to you face to face and says,
Stearns, why are you going to put this new requirement in? I thought we
had the proper levels already in place, and why are you stipulating
more regulation?
And so I go back again to your statement that basically this is a
case where the States are underneath the requirement. Going by your own
statement, I think you have summed up my argument that the bill is not
needed.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would just say to my friend, the one thing I would agree with my
friend on is that the House of Representatives is not the United States
Senate. I wholeheartedly agree with that.
I would also say to my friend, and I believe he may not have been
present that day, but on May 26 of this year, we had a vote in
committee on this bill, and Representative Barton voted for this bill
in committee as part of our drinking water bill. So did 18 other
Republicans. So the bill passed our committee with 45 members voting in
favor.
{time} 1050
Mr. STEARNS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DOYLE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. STEARNS. At that point, that was not the bill that Barbara Boxer
introduced in the Senate. That was a bill that was instituted and
created in the House.
Mr. DOYLE. Reclaiming my time, that bill was the companion bill here
in the House, which was the same as the Boxer bill. It was Ms. Eshoo's
bill, which passed the committee 45-1, with 18 Republicans supporting
it, including Chairman Barton, who is my dear friend.
So I would just say to my friend that I would be more concerned with
someone coming up to a town hall meeting to me and asking me why we
haven't done everything we could to get lead out of drinking water. The
standard is 8 percent in my State; to my knowledge, we don't have a
lower standard. So I certainly appreciate legislation like this which
sets the lowest standard we can attain with the technology we have and
do so in a way that's not onerous to either the public or the
manufacturers who support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all Members to
address their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This debate has probably gone on too long for this. I will wrap up
and just say to my colleagues that at the point that Mr. Barton had an
understanding with Mr. Waxman, it was under different understandings
for the funding of the bill, the science of the bill, and the labor
provisions. These things have since changed.
As you know, if it was the same bill, it would come back under a
House bill number, but it is coming back as a Senate bill that was
introduced by Barbara Boxer. So, as you would realize, this is not the
same bill; otherwise, what Mr. Barton agreed upon with Mr. Waxman, that
would be the bill that we would be voting on. As you know, this is not
the bill. This is a different bill.
I urge my colleagues, with that, to vote against the bill, and I
yield back the balance of my time so we can move on to other important
bills.
Mr. DOYLE. I yield myself 30 seconds.
I want to thank my friend for this debate. I would say to my friend
that this bill is identical to the bill that we had in the House. It is
an identical bill. It is identical in portion. It is not the entire
bill that we had in the House, but this portion of the bill is
identical to the bill that we had in the House.
I would hope my colleagues would join our colleagues in the Senate in
supporting this legislation.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, S. 3874.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
____________________