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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
March 27, 2001, Tuesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1480 words
COMMITTEE:
SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
SUBCOMMITTEE: DRINKING WATER, FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE
HEADLINE: TESTIMONY WATER INFRASTRUCTURE
TESTIMONY-BY: GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, R-OH , SENATOR
BODY: STATEMENT OF SENATOR GEORGE V. VOINOVICH
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE, AND WATER COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND
PUBLIC WORKS HEARING TO RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON WATER AND WASTEWATER INFRASTRUCTURE
NEEDS MARCH 27, 2001 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I am not a member of this
subcommittee, I appreciate having the opportunity to participate in this
morning's hearing. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, to address
the incredible unmet water and wastewater infrastructure needs of our nation.
The state of our nation's water and wastewater infrastructure has been a
long-standing concern of mine. It is an issue that I have been involved with as
County Commissioner, State Legislator, Mayor, Governor, and now U.S. Senator. As
Mayor of Cleveland, for instance, I saw rates increase dramatically to deal with
the City's dual
water infrastructure problems: drinking water
and wastewater treatment. Currently, Ohio's
water
infrastructure needs are estimated at $12.4 billion: that's $5 billion
for drinking water and $7.4 billion for wastewater. We are now faced with a
rumbling of a rebellion across the nation as communities struggle to deal with
aging infrastructure, growth, and increasing federal water quality requirements.
Many communities face the realization that they will have to obtain the revenues
to conduct these costly overhauls locally. Of course, the general public
considers rate increases as they do taxes. And with the reaction to the dramatic
rise in energy costs and other necessities such as health care, it's easy to
understand why the public is concerned with increasing water and sewer rates. As
Governor, I worked with the National Governors Association to identify unfunded
mandates our states and local communities are burdened with.
Water
infrastructure is no exception. In December of last year and earlier
this month, I conducted two meetings in Ohio with several Ohio communities to
discuss the extent of their
water infrastructure needs and how
federal water quality requirements affect their ability to meet those needs. The
folks dealing with the problem at the local level are being mandated to fulfill
a whole host of federal requirements, many of which appear to them to defy
common sense and can't be justified through cost-benefit analysis, risk
assessment, and good, sound science. With increasing requirements, these
communities can't do it by themselves. Because of my frustration with unfunded
mandates, I have been working towards improving the condition of our nation's
water infrastructure and helping communities cope with the high
costs of compliance. That is why I reintroduced legislation earlier this year
that would reauthorize the highly successful, but undercapitalized Clean Water
State Revolving Loan (SRF) program. My bill, the Clean
Water
Infrastructure Financing Act of 2001, S. 252, would authorize $3
billion per year over 5 years for a total of $15 billion. In addition, one of
the bills I pushed especially hard last year was the Wet Weather Quality Act of
2000 (H.R. 828). This bill, which was enacted as part of the Consolidated
Appropriations Act in December, created a $1.5 billion
grant
program to help localities deal with CSO and SSO problems. Now we will need to
ensure that we have the first installment of $750 million to carry-out this
program as Congress addresses this country's priorities. In the longer term, we
may need a larger program to close the gap in
water
infrastructure investment. I don't know what dollar amount Congress can
ultimately approve, but I am in favor of talking about the costs incurred by
localities as a result of actions taken by the federal government - that is the
unfunded mandates that are passed on by Washington - and seeing what we can do
to alleviate the situation. Towards that goal, I have asked the General
Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct a study on the unmet infrastructure needs of
our nation in order to get a better handle on exactly what needs we are facing.
This includes such items as: highways, mass transit, airports, drinking water
supply and wastewater treatment, public buildings, water resources (flood
control and navigation) and hydropower generating facilities. For each
infrastructure area, the GAO will look at how these need estimates are developed
and how they are utilized. The GAO will also identify good and bad examples of
such estimates and where there is room for improvement. I would like to get a
sense from today's witnesses of what you are asked to do and what you need from
us to get the job done. Does what the federal government is asking you to do
make sense? For example, the City of Mansfield, Ohio faces rate increases of up
to 300 percent to improve the quality of wet weather overflows that is already
at or better than the water quality standards of the receiving stream. If
federal regulations do make sense, do your state environmental agencies and
local governments have the capacity to implement them? Finally, how are you
going to pay for all we ask? Again, thank you. I look forward to hearing the
testimony of our witnesses and their responses to any questions that may follow.
LOAD-DATE: March 27, 2001, Tuesday