[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 22241]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     H.R. 2030, SENATOR PAUL SIMON WATER FOR THE WORLD ACT OF 2009

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I submit the following summary of the 
bill, H.R. 2030.

       The Water for the World Act sets a benchmark of providing 
     100 million of the world's poorest with first-time access to 
     safe and sustainable drinking water and sanitation by 2015. 
     To achieve this, the Act builds upon the success of the 2005 
     Water for the Poor Act by:
       Establishing a Senior Advisor for Water within USAID to 
     implement country-specific water strategies;
       Creating a Special Coordinator for International Water 
     within the State Department to coordinate the diplomatic 
     policy of the U.S. with respect to global freshwater issues;
       Establishing programs in countries of greatest need that 
     invest in local capacity, education, and coordination with US 
     efforts; and
       Emphasizing cross-border and cross-discipline 
     collaboration, as well as the utilization of low-cost 
     technologies, such as hand washing stations and latrines.
       The Water for the World Act, S. 624/H.R. 2030, is endorsed 
     by a number of global health and environmental advocates, 
     including Water Advocates, the Natural Resources Defense 
     Council, ONE, Mercy Corps, International Housing Coalition, 
     CARE, and Population Services International.
       H.R. 2030 Co-sponsors: Democrats-87, Republicans-10.


                            Important Facts

       The number of children who die every day from diarrheal 
     diseases spread through poor sanitation and hygiene: 4,100.
       Every day that Congress delays in addressing this problem, 
     more children unnecessarily die. We have the moral obligation 
     to get this legislation done.
       The annual economic benefit to the African continent, 
     including in saved time, increased productivity and reduced 
     health costs if the Millennium Development Goals on water and 
     sanitation are met by 2015: $22 billion.
       The amount national governments in sub-Saharan Africa could 
     save in annual public health expenditures if the Millennium 
     Development Goals on water and sanitation are met by 2015: 
     12% (http://www.one.org/c/us/pastcampaign/2789/).
       According to the World Health Organization, over 10% of the 
     world's disease are caused purely by unsanitary water 
     supplies.
       One billion people do not have access to clean drinking 
     water, and in the past ten years, everyone who has gained 
     access to clean water in developing countries has lived in 
     China or India, nations that are already rapidly improving 
     their public water and sanitation systems.
       2.4 Million deaths are caused annually by poor water 
     conditions (4.2% of all deaths), meaning over 65,000 people 
     die everyday that this bill is not signed.
       In developing nations, only 5% of rural populations have 
     access to plumbing and over 1 billion people still do not 
     have access to a bathroom, spreading disease and infections.


                       Talking Points and Quotes

       Sustainable progress is about much more than water, but 
     never about less.
       Water is medicine. Toilets are medicine. The best kind of 
     medicine--the kind that prevents African children from 
     getting sick in the first place. We have known how to provide 
     this medicine--safe water, sanitation, and handwashing, for 
     centuries.
       As Martin Luther King, Jr. said: ``We will not be satisfied 
     until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a 
     mighty stream.''
       Supreme Court Justice Kennedy: ``This is not my area, but 
     there are 6 billion people on the planet and over 2 billion 
     do not have adequate drinking water. How many hours--and you 
     can't call it man hours because it's women's work--how many 
     hours a year are spent in sub-Saharan Africa bringing water 
     to the family? Answer: 16 billion hours--with a ``b''--and 
     that is the lowest estimate. For some people that's 6-8 hours 
     a day to get water for their family. You take a photo in sub-
     Saharan Africa of the elegant, stately African woman with the 
     long colored dress and the water jug on her head--that jug 
     weighs more than the luggage allowance at the airport. The 
     temptation of the rule of law is to say well, you have the 
     Magna Carta, you wait 600 years, then you have a revolution, 
     then a civil war. What about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 
     `fierce urgency of now'! These people cannot and will not 
     wait and they should not.''
       The water crisis is a global phenomenon. Around the world 
     today, nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean, safe 
     water. More than 2 billion people lack access to basic 
     sanitation. Most of these people live on less than $2 a day.
       In Haiti, there are no public sewage treatment or disposal 
     systems. Even in the capital, Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 
     million people, the drainage canals are choked with garbage. 
     It is no wonder that Haiti has the highest infant and child 
     mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. One-third of 
     Haiti's children do not live to see the age of 5. The leading 
     killer? Water-borne diseases like hepatitis, typhoid, and 
     diarrhea.
       In Sub-Saharan Africa, a lack of access to clean water 
     enslaves poor women. Women and girls are forced to walk two 
     or three hours, or more, in each direction, every day, to 
     collect water that is often dirty and unsafe. The U.N. 
     estimates that these women spend a total of 40 billion 
     working hours each year collecting water. That is equivalent 
     to all of the hours worked in France in a year.
       Water is even central to the fate of the Middle East. In 
     his book, Paul Simon quoted former Israeli Prime Minister 
     Yitzhak Rabin as saying, ``If we solve every other problem in 
     the Middle East but do not satisfactorily resolve the water 
     problem, our region will explode. Peace will not be 
     possible.''

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