[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2386]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                WE MUST UPDATE OUR WATER INFRASTRUCTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, every day we are reminded by current 
events of how essential water and sanitation are to our very existence, 
whether it is Flint, Michigan, droughts in California, or the 
challenges of safe drinking water and sanitation for underdeveloped 
countries. This dominates the news and is at the root of an increasing 
number of conflicts, which will become only more serious.
  Water policy is one of the most critical areas that this Congress 
ought to be able to address on a bipartisan basis. The facts are stark, 
opportunities vivid, and public support is strong.
  That is why I have spent a great deal of time focusing on issues of 
water and sanitation since I first came to Congress. Legislation for 
international water and sanitation is critical not just for 
humanitarian reasons, but to protect the environment. It helps avoid 
conflict within societies and between nations because of water scarcity 
or shared river basins.
  I have worked on legislation reforming flood insurance, rewriting the 
Corps of Engineers' outdated principles and guidelines that should 
inform their practices on water infrastructure and environmental 
management, and I have worked for a decade on the creation of a water 
trust fund. Unlike surface transportation, which has a highway trust 
fund and a source of revenue, the Federal Government has no similar 
mechanism for water and sanitation.
  The status of our water infrastructure is appalling and getting 
worse, while support from the Federal Government has been in decline. 
In fact, there has been a slow, steady retreat on water infrastructure 
spending since the Carter administration.
  The American Society of Civil Engineers has rated our water 
infrastructure a D. We have almost 170,000 drinking water systems 
around the country. While the useful life of pipes can be sometimes up 
to 100 years, we have facilities that date back to the 1800s.
  A water main breaks every 2 minutes. The American Water Works 
Association anticipates the need of a trillion dollars, over the next 
25 years, to replace the most critical of more than a million miles of 
pipe, while congressional appropriations have declined to less than 
$1.5 billion a year, a tiny fraction of our needs.
  The total mileage of sewer mains in the United States is unknown, but 
it is probably between 700,000 and 800,000 miles. Many of these pipes 
were installed right after World War II and are approaching the end of 
their useful life. The sewer systems with aging pipes and inadequate 
capacity mean almost a trillion gallons of untreated sewage each year 
that is discharged into our waterways.
  The total needs over the next 20 years for both sewer and water are 
almost beyond our comprehension, but the current spending, it is clear, 
is completely inadequate. The public and the scientists are finding 
more problems, which will argue for even higher standards.
  That is why I have developed bipartisan legislation for the creation 
of a water trust fund. I have been working on this for years with 
different bipartisan partners. Given that there appears to be little 
appetite now in Congress for any tax or fee increase, I have adjusted 
the bill so that the revenue comes from voluntary participation by 
companies that have a keen interest in clean drinking water and 
adequate sanitation--indeed, their very business depends on it.
  They would be able, for a tiny fee, to voluntarily identify as being 
supportive of the water trust fund. A little seal of approval would 
raise several billion dollars a year. This could be used to deal with 
the problems of low-income ratepayers that make it hard for overall 
rates to be increased and to leverage more investment at a time of 
remarkably low costs of borrowing. We could have significant investment 
to deal with some of our greatest problems.
  This is by no means the entire answer to the looming crisis, but we 
shouldn't wait for the next Flint or the problems in drought-stricken 
California or some other municipal breakdown. We should start now.
  I urge people to cosponsor my bipartisan water trust fund 
legislation, H.R. 4468. Let's get started.

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