[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 155 (Tuesday, December 16, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6911-S6912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               SENATOR PAUL SIMON WATER FOR THE WORLD ACT

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today we celebrate the passage of a bill I 
have been working on for 6 years--the Senator Paul Simon Water for the 
World Act.
  The bill is aptly named after my predecessor from Illinois in the 
Senate--Paul Simon. Paul Simon was ahead of his time on so many 
issues--including on the importance of clean water and sanitation for 
the world's poor.
  He understood if you wanted to avoid conflict between some nations, 
you had to look at the issue of water. He understood if you wanted to 
keep a girl in school or reduce infant mortality, you had to provide 
adequate sanitation and clean water. He understood that without clean 
water and sanitation, efforts

[[Page S6912]]

to improve health and economic opportunities will never be fully 
realized.
  In fact, a dollar spent on clean water and sanitation returns between 
$4 and $8 in economic, health, and other benefits. Paul understood all 
this.
  In 1998, he wrote the book, Tapped Out. It was prescient in its 
wisdom and policy proposals. Despite my recommendations, the book never 
became a bestseller. Though Senator Simon's wife, Patti Simon, has 
become a champion on water in her own right.
  In 2005, the Congress passed the Senator Paul Simon Water for the 
Poor Act, which made providing access to clean water and sanitation for 
the world's poor a key priority in U.S. development assistance.
  When we passed this bill, it was the first time our Nation had 
written into law our commitment to any of the United Nations Millennium 
Development Goals.
  Since then, we have succeeded in increasing funding for these 
important goals. USAID established an Office of Water and a Senior 
Water Coordinator for Water, and last year, it launched its first-ever 
Global Water and Development Strategy to significantly increase clean 
water and sanitation programs.
  These efforts and the original legislation have made real differences 
in the lives of the world's poor. I have seen the simple wells 
providing water for thousands in Haiti.
  For the first time, water and toilets have been provided to slum 
communities in Indonesia, where USAID's program has helped the local 
water utility reach thousands upon thousands of poor people who never 
had access to clean water and sanitation.
  In fact, in 2012, the world achieved the Millennium Development Goal 
of reducing by half the proportion of people in the world without 
access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. At that time, it 
was the only Millennium Development Goal to have been achieved.
  So for the last several years, we have tried to pass the Simon Water 
for the World Act--and in 2009 it passed the full Senate, only to stall 
in the House. Again last Congress, it passed out of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee.
  Today's version does not include everything from the original bill--I 
wish it would have included more. But such is the nature of compromise.
  Today, with passage of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World 
Act, we are going to make more progress.
  It would not have happened without my partner in this effort, Senator 
Corker, and strong support from Senators Coons, Flake, and Murray here 
in the Senate. I also need to acknowledge the leadership of 
Representatives Blumenauer and Poe and the great help of Representative 
Royce in the House.
  This bill will lock in many of the leadership, program, and strategic 
changes that have occurred around USAID water and sanitation programs 
in recent years. It will establish the diplomatic and conflict 
mitigation priorities around water at the Department of State. It will 
refine and establish key criteria to ensure our scarce foreign 
assistance dollars for water and sanitation are truly reaching the 
world's most impoverished populations.
  We have made progress. But there are still almost 1 billion people 
around the world who lack access to clean water, and at least 2.5 
billion more people lack access to adequate sanitation.
  Every day in the developing world, 5,000 children die from water-
borne diseases. Millions of poor children miss school every day because 
they have to walk for hours to find water for their families, or they 
are sick from drinking dirty water. Girls and women suffer most when 
this happens because they are the water-carriers of the world.
  Experts in the Pentagon and elsewhere have called the world water 
shortage a real and growing threat to America's own security.
  New York Times columnist Tom Friedman published a devastating piece 
about how drought and water mismanagement contributed to Syria's bloody 
civil war that makes that clear.
  We also know that every dollar we invest in clean water and basic 
sanitation yields many times that amount in benefits: people are 
healthier; kids stay in school; food is safer; AIDS drugs and other 
critical health treatments are able to work.
  So I thank my colleagues, my key cosponsors in the Senate and House, 
Patti Simon, and the many organizations for supporting this important 
legislation. It will help save lives.

                          ____________________