Divided
Senate Committee Approves Water Infrastructure Bill
- Water Environment Federation,
Alexandria, VA
May 17, 2002
The Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee on May 17 approved legislation (S. 1961)
authorizing $35 billion in new loan funding for water and
wastewater infrastructure. The final vote was 13-6, with the two
Republicans most involved in drafting the legislation, Sens. Bob
Smith (NH), and Mike Crapo (ID) voting against approval. In a
public voting session on May 16, Smith complained that the
majority had significantly changed what had started out as a
bipartisan bill.
Before voting to approve the
legislation, the Committee adopted several amendments, including
one extending the authorization for a $250 million per year wet
weather grants program that was enacted by the last Congress but
never funded. Another amendment adds $5 billion to assist
communities in complying with new arsenic standards for drinking
water.
Several other amendments were
rejected in party-line votes. These included amendments offered by
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) that would have eased management and
community planning requirements on communities receiving loan
assistance. In letters to committee chairman Jim Jeffords (I-VT),
the National Governors Association, the Association of State and
Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators, and the
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators expressed
concern that these and other provisions would be burdensome to the
administration of the drinking water and wastewater loan programs.
The Committee voted along party
lines to reject a Voinovich compromise on the issue of Davis-Bacon
(prevailing wage) requirements that would have applied the federal
wage requirements for only the first round of SRF funding.
Instead, the legislation imposes federal prevailing wage
requirements on all SRF-funded projects. Republicans said that
including Davis-Bacon would be a " deal killer" on the
Senate floor, while Democrats pointed out that 31 states have
their own prevailing wage statutes.
With regard to allocating Clean
Water Act SRF funds among states, the legislation provides for a
new formula based on the EPA needs assessment, with some
adjustment to allow a funding "floor" of 0.7 percent of
the total amount available each year for each state. The Committee
rejected an alternative formula offered by Sen. Smith with a 1
percent floor that would provide slightly more money for smaller
states like New Hampshire.
The Committee leadership, in a
redraft of the bill that was the basis for the voting session,
softened a provision that would have required communities in
"significant noncompliance" with the Clean Water Act to
obtain a judicial Consent Decree as a condition of receiving SRF
assistance. The bill now requires that states certify that
assistance to those communities will allow for correction of
compliance problems. The Consent Decree provision, along with the
management conditions, were a major source of concern for
municipal organizations that were otherwise supportive of efforts
to provide new financial assistance.
In addition to Smith and Crapo,
Senators voting against S. 1961 in committee were Voinovich, John
Warner (R-VA), Christopher Bond (R-MO), and James Inhofe (R-OK).
Controversy over the prevailing wage issue, as well as differences
over the new allotment formula, could delay consideration by the
full Senate. The EPW web site is http://epw.senate.gov/
(TW)
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