Congress Hands White House Mixed Signals on Water Legislation

By Maureen Lorenzetti
Washington Correspondent

The new Democratic-led Senate and Republican-controlled House were eager to reestablish their environmental credentials to voters back home before departing for their month-long August recess.

On top of the agenda was arsenic drinking water standards. Recent polls have suggested that the White House continues to be hurt by a decision this past spring to reject a Clinton administration proposal to tighten the standard.

First the House acted. It passed an amendment offered by Reps. Bonior (D-MI) and Waxman (D-CA) to a spending bill that is part of a $113.4 billion measure financing housing, veterans and environmental programs for the 2002 fiscal year which starts Oct. 1. The overall budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, which would enforce the arsenic rule, is pegged at about $7.5 billion in the House version and $7.8 billion in the Senate.

Under H.R. 2620, the agency would be required to lower arsenic levels from 50 parts per billion to 10 ppb in drinking water. Proponents of the measure noted that the 10 ppb is the same standard adopted by the World Health Organization, European Union, and many developed and developing nations around the world. The amendment passed 218 to 189 as 19 Republicans joined a majority of Democrats in support of the measure.

Industry says it could cost $200 million annually to meet a 10 ppb standard.

The administration, however, did win on another issue: environmental enforcement. The House on a 214-182 vote defeated a proposal that would have blocked EPA from shifting $25 million from the agency's own enforcement budget to state governments.

EPA says it wants to give states more discretion to decide how and when environmental standards are broken. The agency's critics say some states cannot be trusted to follow the rule of law as well as EPA.

That White House victory may have hurt House members seeking to polish up their environmental image, according to the League of Conservation Voters (LCV).

"The American people want their elected officials to put a priority on strict enforcement of laws that keep our air clean and our water safe, especially in the face of an administration that seeks to weaken them," said Betsy Loyless, LCV's political director. The bipartisan coalition to lower arsenic in drinking water reflects the environmental values of mainstream Americans, while the vote against restoring funds for EPA's enforcement program shows us that battle for air and water quality is far from over."

The Senate a week later also voted to have EPA put new arsenic standards into effect immediately. Unlike the House, no specific figure was named in the Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)

Boxer's amendment also would require the agency to trigger a Clinton administration-era community right to know requirement if arsenic levels are 5 ppb or higher.

Her proposal was part of a deal reached with Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM). He has expressed reservations about the science behind the arsenic standard but said he would introduce follow-up legislation requiring federal funds to back the new standards for water systems that need to be upgraded.

Domenici's proposed bill would authorize $1.9 billion for a new EPA grant program that would give federal grants to communities who say they can't afford to comply with a new arsenic standard. Sens. Boxer, Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) threw their support behind the proposal. Which is similar to pending legislation sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

Budget Comparison
Industry's optimism that House and Senate spending panels would add to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund proved correct. EPA's budget request this year was for $850 million, with Drinking Water SRF pegged at $823 million. Under the House Committee bill, the CWSRF would be set at $1.2 billion; the Senate version is even higher at $1.35 billion. For DWSRF, the House and Senate versions call for $850 million.

Other Legislative Action
Included in the Senate bill is a non-binding provision sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) which would retool the funding formula for wastewater infrastructure.

The resolution calls on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to enact authorization language for the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund soon after the August recess.

Before becoming law both the House and Senate bills must be reconciled in a legislative conference and then voted on again before being sent to President Bush. It is unclear whether either bill in its present form would be vetoed. Lawmakers are hoping the spending bill becomes law sometime in September.

In other legislative action, the House of Representatives defeated a proposal that would have given states more flexibility meeting clean air standards if they choose to ban the fuel additive methyl tertiary butyl ether from gasoline. Lawmakers from California sought permission to waive the 2 percent by weight oxygen standard in federal reformulated gasoline. Several states, most notably California, have or plan to ban the additive because of concerns that it contaminates the drinking water supply. MTBE is one of two commercially available additives that are used to make gasolines that meet federal clean air standards for ground level ozone. The other common fuel additive that can meet the rule is fuel ethanol, typically made from corn.

Ethanol enjoys special tax breaks on the federal level and in some cases, state level. But it is often more expensive than MTBE and is harder to ship through traditional gasoline transportation networks. EPA has already denied an earlier request by California to waive the oxygenate level so it is not forced to use fuel ethanol. Another state, New York, may consider its own request to EPA regardless.

The defeated amendment would have allowed any state's governor to seek an oxygenate waiver from the clean fuel rule. EPA would have had to act on that request in 270 days. The proposal was offered as part of a much larger omnibus energy bill, H.R. 4, that seeks to codify much of the White House's energy blueprint released in May. A similar amendment is expected to be offered in the Senate, either as part of an energy bill or as a rider to a spending bill.

In one small victory for industry, the House did agree to another amendment which would authorize $200 million from the leaking underground storage tank trust fund to be used for mitigating MTBE contamination caused by leaking tanks.