[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.

                          ____________________