[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15332-15334]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 
        INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2002--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is an order for the recognition of the 
Senator from California at this time.
  The Senator from California.


                Amendment No. 1219 To Amendment No. 1214

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer], for herself, Mr. 
     Nelson of Florida, and Mr. Biden, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1219 to amendment No. 1214.
       At the appropriate place, add the following:
       Sec.  . The Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
     Agency, pursuant to the Safe Drinking Water Act, shall 
     immediately put into effect a new national primary drinking 
     water regulation for arsenic that--
       (1) establishes a standard for arsenic at a level providing 
     for the protection of the population in general, fully taking 
     into account those at greater risk, such as infants, 
     children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with a 
     history of serious illness; and
       (2) lifts the suspension on the effective date for the 
     community right to know requirements included in the national 
     primary drinking water regulation for arsenic published on 
     January 22, 2001, in the Federal Register (66 Fed. Reg. 
     6976).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I have an amendment now pending before 
the Senate. I am very proud of this amendment. I have offered it on 
behalf of myself and Senator Nelson of Florida, and Senator Biden, and 
many other Senators who are very supportive of this amendment.
  The reason I had the clerk read the amendment in its entirety is 
because it is written in plain English and is very straightforward.
  Essentially it says that the Administrator for the Environmental 
Protection Agency shall immediately put into effect a new standard, a 
new primary drinking water regulation for arsenic that will, in 
essence, protect our people from arsenic in their drinking water. The 
second part says that we will lift the suspension on the effective date 
for the community right-to-know mailers that were supposed to go out, 
letting people know how much arsenic is in their water.
  I hope all of us will agree, people have a right to know that.
  I want to talk a little bit about how this amendment came to be 
today, how we got on this road. Frankly, we should not be here. In the 
last administration, they set a new level for arsenic in water at 10 
parts per billion. It was going to go into effect, and then this 
administration suspended it.
  What we are doing in our amendment today is not even saying go back 
to 10. I certainly hope they go to 5. But notwithstanding that, we just 
say: Put a new standard in place because the standard that is in place, 
as I talk to you tonight, is 50 parts per billion. We need to move this 
forward.
  Let me explain why this happened. I know I have 30 minutes. Will the 
Chair let me know when I have gone on for 15?
  I thank the Chair.
  What we see on this green chart is what this Senate passed last year 
in this very same bill. It said: The Administrator shall promulgate a 
national primary drinking water regulation for arsenic not later than 
June 22, 2001. What happened? It didn't happen. They repealed the 
Clinton standard and went back to the 50 parts per billion standard 
which everyone agrees is way too high to drink our water in a safe 
fashion. This date slipped.
  In essence, we have a situation where the Congress said to the 
President: You shall do this. The President signed this. This was 
President Clinton. This was the law of the land. And yet the date 
slipped.
  I want to get into the reasons why this is so important, beyond the 
fact that we have gone back to the old standard and the President, in 
my view, did not have the right to do that.
  This is a chart I actually got from the House side where the House 
has passed a very strong arsenic amendment, even stronger than what we 
have before us. What you see on this chart is, the darker the red dot, 
the more arsenic in the water. You can see that there is virtually 
arsenic in almost all our States. There are some that are fortunate. 
They don't have it. But there is a huge amount of arsenic around the 
country.
  Why is this important? I know intuitively people would say arsenic is 
bad. We know that intuitively. But it is more than intuition. It is 
science. It is lots and lots of science. I want to put that on the 
record tonight.
  There is a Dartmouth study that came out in March of 2001: Arsenic 
Disrupts Critical Hormone Functions. That is what this study showed. It 
doesn't say ``it may.'' It doesn't say ``it might.'' It says it does. 
It disrupts critical hormone functions. What does this mean to us? It 
means increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of cardiovascular 
disease, increased risk of cancer.
  When we throw up our hands and we say, did you ever believe how much 
diabetes there is, how much cancer there is, what are the answers? We 
are starting to get the answers. Science is giving us the answers. This 
is one of the answers.
  Here is another one, another study, Chemical Research in Toxicology, 
an EPA study completed April 2001. They say: There is a direct link 
between arsenic and DNA damage. They didn't say there ``may be.'' They 
didn't say ``perhaps.'' They said there is. What does this mean to us? 
Increased risk of cancer, and no level of arsenic is completely safe.
  That is why the second part of our amendment is so crucial because it 
is the community's right to know. When you go to your mailbox under 
this part of the amendment, you will find out once a year how much 
arsenic is in your water.
  Here is another scientific study, done in Taiwan, very well 
respected, it appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology. This is 
what they found: Compared to the general population, people who drink 
water with arsenic levels between 10.1 parts per billion and 50 parents 
per billion are twice as likely to get certain urinary cancers. It 
doesn't say ``maybe'' they are twice as likely. What does this mean? 
The U.S. drinking water standard for arsenic must be immediately set at 
the lowest possible level.

[[Page 15333]]

  That is what the Boxer-Nelson-Biden-Corzine amendment et al does.
  Let's look at the countries and the different levels they have of 
arsenic in their water. This is very instructive.
  This is an important chart because it shows where the countries of 
the world are in terms of arsenic levels in their water. What we find 
is the one with the least arsenic allowed happens to be Australia. That 
is 7 parts per billion. Then we go to the European Union where it is 10 
parts per billion. Japan is 10 parts per billion. The World Health 
Organization is 10 parts per billion. Then you get up to where 
President Bush put us when he suspended the Clinton standard of 10. The 
Clinton standard of 10 was with the European Union and Japan and the 
WHO. But now we are with Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, India, and 
Indonesia. This is not where we want to be, I say to my friends. This 
is an amazing place for us to be as a nation that is the leader in 
science and technology and health care. So this is wrong on its face.
  Let's look at the cancer numbers pretty specifically. I have saved 
time for all my friends who are here. I said before that there is no 
safe level of arsenic in drinking water. We know that to be the case. 
But what we are trying to do is at least get a level that is achievable 
that we can accomplish and we can take credit for and get it done.
  If you look at this chart, it is kind of chilling. If you look at 
where we are on the Bush standard--50 parts per billion--1 in 100 of us 
will get cancer if we drink out of that water supply at 50 parts per 
billion. That is the Bush law right now. At 20 parts per billion, the 
cancer risk goes down to 1 in 250 people. At 10 parts per billion, it 
is 1 in 500. You are not altogether safe there either, but it is a lot 
better than the 50 parts per billion, which is 1 in 100. If you go to 3 
parts per billion, the risk goes down more. I think this is very 
important.
  Let me tell you what one of the water districts is saying about this. 
It is the American Waterworks Association, the California-Nevada 
section. These are people who, you would think, would be fighting us, 
would not want to invest in getting the arsenic out of the water. They 
say:

       While the standard is in limbo--

  By that they mean the Clinton standard was suspended and we have no 
new standard; it went back to the old standard of 50.
  They say:

       the enforcement deadlines are not. Now the systems affected 
     are facing an unrealistic time line for compliance, which 
     creates a handicap in meeting this critical health goal.

  They are upset that they have no number, they have no goal they have 
to reach. It makes it harder and harder for them to take action. By the 
way, they did endorse the 10 parts per billion level.
  In closing this part before I save a little time at the end, let me 
again say what happened when George Bush became President. A lot 
happened, but on this issue this is what happened. He took this little 
``suspended'' stamp and suspended the 10 parts per billion standard 
that President Clinton had put in place after lots of scientific study. 
He also suspended--in some ways, to me, this is even worse. He 
suspended the community right to know. So not only did he suspend the 
Clinton standard at 10 parts per billion, but he suspended the Clinton 
community right-to-know provision that said if you live in a 
community--a rural community, an urban community, a farm community--you 
have the right to know if you have arsenic in your water, because if 
you have a baby in the house and that arsenic is up there at 30, 40, 50 
parts per billion, watch out. If someone is sick with cancer, or AIDS, 
or has any type of heart condition, watch out. So he suspended 
everything good when it came to these rules.
  It is time we do something very good tonight. I have some good 
feelings about the response we are getting to this amendment. I am 
hoping for an overwhelming vote.
  I ask the Chair how much time I have remaining on my side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 18\1/2\ minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. May I ask the Senator, would he like to take some time or 
are my colleagues under a rush?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Yes.
  Mrs. BOXER. If I might propose that we hear from Senator Nelson of 
Florida for 3 minutes, and then we will go over to Senator Domenici for 
as much time as he wants to use. Is that fair?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, we have 30 minutes. The way I look at 
it, we don't need the entire 30 minutes. If you can do with less, we 
can vote sooner.
  Mrs. BOXER. I doubt it. I will try. Everybody here wishes to speak.
  Mr. DOMENICI. That is fine. I thank the Senator.
  Mrs. BOXER. I yield to Senator Nelson for 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I may need another couple of 
minutes.
  I thank you for this opportunity to support the Boxer amendment. This 
is just a lot of common sense. You have seen all of the technical and 
scientific statements that have been made about why it is important to 
reduce the level of arsenic in drinking water.
  We have recently, in Florida, encountered another aspect of arsenic 
poisoning which has brought this particular element to the forefront of 
Floridians' minds. It is the fact of arsenic-treated wood--the wood 
being used for playground equipment. And now we are having so many of 
our cities and our counties closing the playgrounds because when the 
rains come, it leeches through the arsenic-treated wood onto the 
playground soil, and in many cases local health departments have 
determined that that is unsafe for children. Yet everyone is really in 
confusion as to what is safe and what is unsafe. The EPA was not even 
going to complete that study until 2003. We urged them to speed it up. 
They promised that by this June they would have their study done, and 
now they have delayed it on into the fall.
  In the meantime, local governments have closed playgrounds. Some of 
them have reopened the playgrounds, not knowing whether this poison, 
known as arsenic, used in treating the wood--and it was never known 
that it would be a problem--whether or not this is a hazard to our 
children's health in the soil of those playgrounds.
  I tell you this story because this is on the minds of a lot of 
Floridians right now. As we come to a question of what is the safe 
level of arsenic in drinking water, as Senator Boxer has said over and 
over, EPA has stated that arsenic is dangerous. They have classified it 
as a known carcinogen. They have said over a long period of time that 
we ought to be studying this. As a matter of fact, in 1962 the U.S. 
Public Health Service recommended decreasing the 50 parts per billion 
standard to 10 parts per billion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 3 minutes.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. May I have an additional minute?
  Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely. I yield an additional minute.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I can't say everything I want to say in 1 
minute. Let me conclude by saying that if ever there was something 
having to do with common sense, and you have all of this scientific 
evidence behind you that says we ought to reduce the standard from 50 
to 10 parts per billion, then we as stewards of the public trust ought 
to act on that. So, Madam President, that is why I stand and strongly 
advocate that our colleagues vote for this amendment. I am pleased to 
join Senator Boxer as a sponsor of the amendment.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from 
Delaware.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator from California. I will try not to 
take the whole 3 minutes.
  If there is one thing that got the attention of the American people, 
of everything that has happened in the last 7 months, it is this issue. 
Why? The only thing I have ever seen that every Conservative, Liberal, 
Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Communist, Fascist--anybody who has a 
water tap in

[[Page 15334]]

America--agrees upon, it is they fully expect, above all else, when 
they turn on their water tap, the water they are about to consume or 
give to their children is healthful, not harmful.
  We can argue about 50 parts per billion, 10 parts per billion. This 
has been a revelation to the vast majority of the American people who 
do not already have water that is being held to the highest standard. 
We do not have to say anything back to folks in Delaware other than 
that our standards are the same as Bangladesh, lower than Europe.
  This is not complicated. The science sustains the position that was 
taken. This was not arrived at. We are not even dictating 10 parts per 
billion in this amendment. We both wish we were, but we are not even 
doing that.
  I conclude my very brief comments by saying my State of Delaware is 
not known as some liberal bastion. We are the corporate State of 
America. The legislature in my State of Delaware passed a law which 
says water coming out of the taps in Delaware can be no less than 10 
parts per billion.
  To those who do not like this amendment, get ready to explain it at 
home.
  I compliment the Senator. She is dead on. This is one issue that 
every single constituent I know, unless they own a mining company, 
supports.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise in support of Senator Boxer's 
amendment to establish once and for all a protective standard for 
arsenic in our Nation's drinking water.
  As most of my colleagues know, I have had a longstanding interest in 
cancer. For me this fight is a personal one.
  I lost my father and my husband to cancer. My current husband, 
Richard, lost both his parents to cancer. And I have lost a host of 
dear friends to this terrible disease.
  With cancer, you're never the same after experiencing this with a 
loved one. You're determined to do something about it.
  This is the major reason I was extremely disappointed when the 
current administration, soon after taking office, postponed the 
implementation of Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new drinking 
water standard for arsenic earlier this year.
  Arsenic has long been know as a carcinogen, a substance that produces 
cancer, and yet the current administration shelved the new rule in 58 
days flat.
  Administration officials explained that the reason for this 
postponement was to allow for additional scientific review. I find this 
position difficult to comprehend when one considers how much scientific 
review has gone into this ruling.
  The Federal Government has studied arsenic for almost 40 years.
  In fact, few government environmental decisions have been more 
thoroughly researched, over so many years, than the EPA's move to lower 
the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per 
billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.
  This standard was first proposed by the U.S. Public Health Service 
back in 1962. Over the next three decades, regulators weighed dozens of 
studies on the issue as they struggled to balance the health risks, 
which mostly include increased risk of cancer, with the costs of 
extracting the metal from drinking water.
  We should take note of a recent report by the National Academy of 
Sciences. In this report the Academy concluded that the arsenic 
standard for drinking water of 50 ppb, set in 1942 before arsenic was 
known to cause cancer, ``does not achieve EPA's goal for public health 
protection and, therefore, requires downward revision as promptly as 
possible.''
  In fact, the Academy reported that drinking water at the current EPA 
standard of 50 ppb ``could easily'' result in a total fatal cancer risk 
of 1 in 100 about 10,000 times higher than the cancer risk EPA allows 
for carcinogens in food.
  And we should remember that children's increased exposures to 
environmental carcinogens, such as arsenic, are potentially even more 
serious.
  Children's higher risk results from the fact that they breath more 
air, drink more water and eat more food per pound than do adults; for 
example, a child in the first six months of life consumes seven times 
as much water per pound of body weight as does the average American 
adult.
  Therefore, a carcinogen has a much more significant impact on a 
child.
  There are over 70,000 chemicals in common use today in the United 
States and several dozen known carcinogens, according to the 
Environmental Protection Agency.
  Rachel Carson warned us in 1962, ``For the first time in the history 
of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with 
dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.''
  For those dangerous chemicals which we have the ability to limit from 
human exposure, such as arsenic in drinking water, we should absolutely 
take the necessary steps to do so.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I rise today in support of this 
amendment. The current standard for acceptable arsenic levels in 
drinking water was established in 1942 and, as early as 1962, 
recommendations were made by the U.S. Public Health Service that the 50 
parts per billion standard should be changed. The science indicates 
that at 50 parts per billion (ppb), the cancer risk from arsenic is 1-
in-100. EPA regulations are supposed to regulate to a 1-in-10,000 
arsenic risk.
  Today's amendment simply directs the administration to put a new 
standard into effect immediately and gives communities the right to 
know the arsenic levels in their drinking water.
  However, I am concerned about the potential impacts that reducing the 
level of arsenic in drinking water might have on small or rural 
communities, like many in my home State of North Dakota. North Dakota 
has approximately 35 communities that might be especially hard hit by a 
more stringent arsenic in drinking water standard. That is why I am a 
cosponsor of legislation sponsored by Senator Reid that would increase 
funding for small communities to help treat drinking water systems for 
arsenic and other contaminants. I am pleased that Senator Jeffords has 
committed to examine these critical funding issues in conjunction with 
providing his support for today's amendment.