[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 22959]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       INTRODUCING THE WATER FOR THE POOR ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2008

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                      Saturday, September 27, 2008

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, today, I am introducing the Water for 
the Poor Enhancement Act of 2008, with Representatives Donald Payne, 
Donald Manzullo, Sheila Jackson Lee, Chris Shays, George Miller, Steve 
LaTourette, and Walter Jones as original cosponsors. The Water for the 
Poor Enhancement Act complements legislation introduced today in the 
Senate by Senator Richard Durbin.
  This bill enhances our Nation's commitment to addressing the global 
water crisis. Every 15 seconds, a child dies from lack of access to 
safe water and sanitation. Across the globe, 900 million people live 
without access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion people are 
without access to improved sanitation. Millions of girls can't go to 
school because they must spend hours walking to collect water for their 
families. As half of the people in the developing world are sick at any 
given time from a water-related disease, water and sanitation access is 
a major barrier to fighting poverty and increasing economic 
productivity.
  At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 
South Africa the United States and 185 other countries agreed to the 
goal of cutting in half the percentage of people without access to safe 
water and basic sanitation by 2015. I responded by working with Reps. 
Tom Lantos and Henry Hyde and Sens. Bill Frist and Harry Reid to enact 
the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, which 
established water and sanitation as a cornerstone of United States 
foreign assistance efforts.
  We are now halfway to the 2015 date, and we must redouble our 
efforts. By 2030, 4 billion people--almost half the world's projected 
population--will live in water-stressed areas. Three days ago the U.N. 
Secretary General convened a High Level Event on the Millennium 
Development Goals in New York, urging governments to translate their 
commitments into actions and aggressively work to meet these goals.
  This legislation answers the call to act. The Water for the Poor 
Enhancement Act is a bipartisan, non-ideological approach to making our 
government more responsive to this crisis. This legislation would 
increase U.S. Government capacity to coordinate and streamline clean 
water and sanitation development activities and foster strategic 
investments in on-the-ground expertise and low cost, high impact 
technologies.
  Through this legislation we will help U.S. Government pull together 
the pieces to implement a smart and efficient global water strategy and 
to meet our commitment to extend safe drinking water and sanitation to 
over a billion people in need.

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