To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to reauthorize programs to improve the quality of coastal recreation waters, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1721, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Young and Ranking Member Oberstar for their support, their leadership and their hard work in moving this important and bipartisan legislation through the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and on to the House floor today.

In addition, I am deeply grateful for the support and contributions of the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), the chairman of the Water Resources Subcommittee, and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson), the subcommittee's ranking member, for their steadfast support and commitment to America's coastal environment.

Mr. Speaker, as the distinguished subcommittee chairman has just explained, H.R. 1721 reauthorizes grants under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000 known as the BEACH Act through fiscal year 2011. The record shows that the BEACH Act has been a proven success for 35 coastal States and U.S. territories. It goes a long way towards maintaining pristine coastline, and is a critical component of preserving our Nation's environment and sustaining the tourist economies of our States.

As someone whose district on Eastern Long Island is almost completely surrounded by beaches, I know that American families expect and deserve clean water for their enjoyment, and in some cases, their businesses, such as tourism and the fishing industries. Indeed, beach-going Americans deserve pristine waterways to enjoy with their families, and we need to protect these areas for future generations.

By fully funding the water quality monitoring and notifications grants established under the BEACH Act of 2000, we can assure the American public that preserving healthy shores is a priority of our environmental agenda.

Over the past 5 years States have made great progress in creating monitoring plans and putting them to good use. The most recent EPA data on beach closings and advisories indicates that only 4 percent of beach days were lost in 2004 due to closures triggered by bacteria monitoring. This is a significant improvement from past years.

In addition, the number of beaches we monitor has more than tripled from about 1,000 in 1997 to more than 3,500 in 2004.

One of the strongest economic forces along America's coast is tourism. Obviously, vacationers, visitors and beachgoers who enjoy the sea certainly do not want to visit beaches that are closed. I am confident, therefore, that this program will continue to be supported by both sides of the aisle and in both Chambers.

I look forwarding to working with the Senate to advance this bill in order to ensure the BEACH Act's reauthorization without delaying or interrupting the important coastal preservation programs it funds.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is good for the environment, is sound public policy, and continues a critically important program necessary to preserve one of our most precious and beloved natural resources.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) for his support and for the fine work of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1721) to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to reauthorize programs to improve the quality of coastal recreation waters, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1721 to extend the authorization of appropriations for Clean Water Act programs aimed at improving the quality and safety of our Nation's recreational coastal waters. Beaches are a very important part of American life. Each year, over 180 million people visit coastal waters for recreational purposes.

This activity supports over 28 million jobs and leads to investments of over $50 billion each year in goods and services nationally. Public confidence in

the quality of our Nation's waters is important not only to each citizen who swims, but also to the tourism and recreation industries that rely on safe and swimmable coastal waters.

To improve the public's confidence in the quality of our Nation's coastal waters and to protect public health and safety, Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000, commonly called the BEACH Act, in the 106th Congress.

Under the BEACH Act, the EPA has been developing new water quality criteria to protect human health from disease-causing pathogens, and States are updating their water quality standards for recreational coastal waters to incorporate these more protective critical.

The EPA also has been making grants to States to help them implement programs to monitor beach water quality and to notify the public if water quality standards are not being met.

H.R. 1721 reauthorizes the current level of funding for these programs. This includes $30 million annually through fiscal year 2011 for the EPA to make grants to help them implement their coastal waters monitoring and public notification programs.

H.R. 1721 will help protect public health and safety and continue to improve the quality of our Nation's recreational coastal waters that are so very important to the economies of our coastal communities.

I certainly want to congratulate our colleague, Mr. Bishop, on sponsoring this bill, and I urge all Members to support this very worthwhile legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will simply close by saying that this is a very strong bill for the environment. It is a bill that is important to thousands of cities, towns and small communities along the coast of this country. Not every bill that claims to be for the environment is really a good bill because some of them drive up prices and destroy jobs and hurt the poor and lower income and working people, but this is a pro-environment bill that helps sustain and even creates jobs. I do not know of any negatives with this bill. I think it is something that all of our colleagues can support. I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as one of the original authors of the BEACH Act five years ago, I rise in support of H.R. 1721 and thank my friend from New York, Mr. Bishop, for working to move this legislation forward.

The BEACH Act of 2000 took major steps towards improving water quality testing and monitoring at beaches across the country, which is critical to protecting the health of beachgoers. The Act had three provisions: requiring states to adopt current EPA water quality criteria to protect beachgoers from getting sick; requiring the EPA to update these water quality criteria, developed in 1986, with new science and technologies to provide better, faster water testing; and providing grants to states to implement coastal water monitoring programs.

The bill before us extends the authorization for appropriations under this third provision, which expired at the end of this fiscal year, until 2011. This is an important step because every coastal state now has a beach water monitoring program that relies on federal grant funding. However, we need to realize that there are still outstanding issues in the implementation of the other portions of the BEACH Act that merit Congressional involvement.

In particular, EPA was to have completed new water quality criteria by October of this year to make sure that all Americans can feel safe swimming at the beach without worrying that they will get sick. My office has spoken extensively with EPA about this, however, and it seems that this will likely not be completed until 2011. EPA is spending nearly a decade studying water testing methods, waiting to collect data on freshwater beaches before even beginning to test marine beaches.

This delay, likely due at least in part to insufficient funding from the Administration and this Congress, has prevented EPA from helping communities implement rapid water testing methods that could shorten the time for beginning and ending beach closures from two days to merely a few hours. Such an improvement would provide much greater protection to beachgoers and help shore economies by avoiding unnecessary closures.

I intend to work with my colleagues here and with EPA to improve the implementation of the original BEACH Act and keep our coastal waters as clean as possible. In the meantime, I am pleased to see the House extend the grants program through this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H.R. 1721, a vital measure to reauthorize appropriations for coastal recreation water quality monitoring and notification grants through 2011. Originally passed in the BEACH bill in 2000, this program was added to the Clean Water Act to require states with coastal areas, including those in the Great Lakes region, to adopt minimum standards for water quality, test recreational beach waters, and notify the public when test levels prove unsafe.

In 1999, before the BEACH bill became law, only eleven states tested their waters and reported to the public when there was a presence of bacteria and viruses. Human contact with such waters, especially in the elderly and very young, can result in gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory diseases, and ear, nose, or throat infections. These bacteria and viruses are typically the result of polluted stormwater and runoff, overburdened sewage treatment facilities, and malfunctioning septic systems. Ignorance was not bliss, ignorance was a serious health hazard. While we must certainly do more to eliminate these pollution sources, until they are eliminated, we must test recreational waters and adequately inform those who might be at risk from them.

Poor health conditions from contaminated waters adversely affect those who live by

coastal waters and those who travel to the shore. According to the latest reports from the Travel Industry Association of America, 109.5 million travelers visit the beach per year. Over 36 percent of those tourists stayed for a week or longer, and 41 percent of the travelers were children--those who could most be adversely affected by contaminated waters.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud the efforts of our Committee colleague, Mr. Bishop, in proposing this important legislation. As the representative of the northern part of the Long Island Sound, the gentleman is well aware of the importance of clean beaches and public notification of potential health exceedances for residents and visitors to the Sound. I commend the gentleman's hard work in reauthorizing funding for this program.

I support this reauthorization and I urge my colleagues to let ``a day at the beach'' continue to be a pseudonym for recreational relaxation and enjoyment, not a risk of pollution and ill health.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1721, legislation to reauthorize the BEACH Act. I thank Mr. Bishop for his vital leadership on this important measure. I also want to thank Chairman Young, Mr. Duncan, and Ranking Member Oberstar for their efforts to bring the BEACH Act to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, America's beaches are our national treasures. They are an important part of our heritage. They are environmental assets and economic assets. We want to keep them that way, and that is exactly what this measure will do.

This vital legislation provides State and local governments with grant money to monitor pathogen levels off their shores, and to notify the public when those pathogens levels are above acceptable levels. Pathogens, we all know, can cause illness when people are exposed to them through swimming or consuming fish from contaminated water.

It is absolutely essential that we continue to fund these programs so that States and localities have the resources that they need to protect recreational users from dangerous levels of bacteria, viruses or parasites off their shores. When people go to the beach, including the 981 square miles of coastal waters in New York, it should be pleasant and it should be safe. That is why this bill is so vitally important. I urge my colleagues to support the reauthorization of the BEACH Act to ensure that we protect Americans from potentially toxic coastal water.