Commending Serena Williams for her victory in the 2009 Wimbledon Women's Singles Championship and the 2009 Wimbledon Doubles Championship.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The bill pending before us has been so well described in the discussion of the rule that it seems superfluous to repeat the major items of the pending legislation.

At the Rules Committee yesterday, I said, and our floor manager for the Rules Committee restated, that we bring to the House bills that passed the House in the 110th Congress individually. The gentleman from Colorado read off the votes, which were overwhelming, well over 300- plus votes in favor of each of those bills; just bipartisanship, nonpartisanship, overwhelming support for these measures.

Unfortunately, they went to the other body, never to be heard of again. So we thought it would be a better approach this year to combine those all into one bill, and maybe the other body can do one bill instead of five, we are hoping.

The commitment to clean water, though, cannot be taken so slightly, cannot be just subject to ``hotline holds'' by the other body, cannot be subject to undisclosed holds, cannot be subject to indifference to action. The agenda for clean water is ours. It's for the next generation. It's to hand on to the next generation water in better condition than we received it from the previous generation.

I have been on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from the time it was the Committee on Public Works. I started my career in this House in January of 1963 as Clerk of the Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors, the oldest committee of the House, the first committee of the House.

Our work has evolved over many years to encompass a wide range of issues related to investment in the Nation's well-being, but none more fundamental, more important, than water. All the water we ever had on this Earth, or ever will have, is with us today. We aren't going to create new water from any technological source. No comet is likely to come into our orbit and deposit new ice to form water. Our responsibility is to care for the water we have.

Every day, 42 trillion gallons of moisture passes over the continental United States. Ten percent of that falls as moisture, 4.2 trillion gallons. Of that, some .4 trillion gallons is absorbed by the soil or evaporates. The rest, some 680 billion gallons, goes into surface waters of the United States. That is all we have every day, 680-some billion gallons.

We have to manage it well, make sure that we use it properly, that we return to the streams and lakes and estuaries of the Nation water in clean condition. This legislation will move us in that direction.

The centerpiece of this $18.7 billion package of bills is restoration of and reauthorization of the State Revolving Fund from which funds are borrowed by municipalities to build wastewater treatment facilities, sewer lines, interceptor sewers, separate storm and combine storm and sanitary sewers. But for a dozen years, until the 110th Congress, that legislation had expired and had not been reauthorized. The funding was continued, but at lower levels of appropriation, for each of those 12 years until the 110th Congress.

That leveled off, because the authorization legislation could never make its way to the House floor, even though our committee was prepared to do that. We had bipartisan support within the committee, but could never get it to the House floor.

Well, we brought it to the floor in the 110th and passed it overwhelmingly, as I said earlier. It went to the Senate, and that has not moved.

The stimulus legislation provides funding of $4.6 billion, half in loans and half in grant funds to the State Revolving Funds to create jobs and to deal with the backlog of need in State wastewater treatment programs and sewer upgrades. Hardly a week goes by that I don't read of a matter main break or a sewer line break somewhere in this country.

It is commentary on the aging wastewater structure of this country and the need to rebuild it, need to upgrade our sewage treatment plant facilities built in the 1970s and some in the 1980s that are beyond their capacities or that are in need of new technology upgrades. This legislation will move us in the direction of dealing with those needs.

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, March 9, 2009.

Hon. James L. Oberstar,

Chairman, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I write to you regarding H.R. 1262,

``the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009.''

Section 1501 of H.R. 1262, as ordered reported, increases

vessel tonnage duties. This provision falls within the

jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means. In addition,

H.R. 1262 violates clause 5(a) of Rule XXI, which restricts

bills and amendments from carrying taxes and tariffs not

reported by the Ways and Means Committee.

I recognize and appreciate your desire to bring this

legislation before the House in an expeditious manner and,

accordingly, I will not seek a sequential referral of the

bill and will not oppose H.R. 1262 being given a waiver of

Rule XXI. However, I agree to waive consideration of this

bill with the understanding that this does not in any way

prejudice the Committee on Ways and Means or its

jurisdictional prerogatives on H.R. 1262 or similar

legislation.

Further, the Ways and Means Committee reserves the right to

seek the appointment of conferees during any House-Senate

conference convened on this legislation on provisions of the

bill that are within the Committee's jurisdiction. I ask for

your commitment to support any request by the Committee on

Ways and Means for the appointment of conferees on H.R. 1262

or similar legislation. I also ask that a copy of this letter

and your response be placed in the Committee report on H.R.

1262 and in the Congressional Record during consideration of

this bill by the House.

I look forward to working with you as we prepare to pass

this important legislation.

Sincerely,

Charles B. Rangel,

Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Chair of the Water Resources Subcommittee, Ms. Johnson of Texas, and yield myself 5 seconds to compliment her on the splendid work she has done in chairing this subcommittee in the 110th and in this Congress, and the groundwork she has laid to bring this legislation to the floor.

I yield 1 additional minute.

I yield 2 minutes to a hardworking member of the committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan, defender of the Great Lakes water, Mr. Stupak.

How much time remains on both sides?

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 1 minute to express my great appreciation to Mr. Mica for the splendid cooperation we have had and the bipartisan spirit in which we approached combining these bills into one package, one piece of legislation for the House floor; Ms. Johnson, for her splendid leadership as chair of the subcommittee; Mr. Boozman as the ranking member, who has done splendid service to the Nation in his championship of water; and Mr. Ehlers. If it were up to me, I would rename this the Vern Ehlers Great Lakes Legacy Act. At some point in time, I think we will come to do that.

We do have a President from the Great Lakes region who has increased funding for the Great Lakes in the budget, but the details are yet to come. The overall dollar amount is increased, I'd say, Mr. Chairman. And I hope to work closely with the gentleman from Michigan as the details of the budget come out to designate the appropriate amount of funding for the Great Lakes Legacy Act.

I yield 2 minutes to a refugee from the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, but still an advocate for our programs, particularly for clean water, the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a former member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, an adjunct member of the committee.

I yield the gentleman another 1 minute.

Thank you to the Chair of the full committee and to the subcommittee members, as well as the full committee.

I rise in strong support of the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009. This legislation authorizes almost $19 billion to protect and restore the integrity of U.S. waters, which are one of this country's most valuable natural resources. Over the past several decades, we have made significant progress in improving the quality of our water. Unfortunately, much of this progress is now at risk.

Today, approximately 40 percent of the rivers, lakes and coastal waters do not meet State water quality standards, and the problem is getting worse. Based on EPA estimates, without significant additional investment in our Nation's system of wastewater infrastructure, discharges into the U.S. waters could reach levels not seen since 1968, 4 years before the enactment of the 1972 Clean Water Act.

Moreover, much of the United States' water structure is approaching or has exceeded its projected useful life and is now in need of repair or replacement. Without significant investment now, this could have dire consequences for human health, aquatic ecosystems and our overall quality of life.

The Environmental Protection Agency and others estimate that we will need to invest between $300 billion to $400 billion over the next 20 years to address these water infrastructure needs. Current estimates show an annual funding gap of between $3 billion to $11 billion over our existing expenditures, from Federal, State and local sources.

This legislation will help jump-start the investment in these needs so that we will continue to have access to clean, safe water and so future generations can continue to enjoy the economic and recreational benefits of our water resources.

The Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 contains five titles which, together, will make great progress to this end. Each of these titles contain legislative proposals that passed through the House in the 110th Congress. Unfortunately, these important bills never became law.

The first title reauthorizes the Clean Water State Revolving Fund legislation. It is intended to address the Nation's infrastructure needs and to reaffirm the Federal commitment toward meeting the goals of the Clean Water Act. This title reauthorizes the Federal grant program for capitalizing State Revolving Funds at $13.8 billion over next 5 years.

Further, the reauthorization provides increased flexibility in the types of projects that the State Revolving Fund can finance. In addition, it seeks to improve the efficiency of our wastewater infrastructure by promoting, to the maximum extent practicable, the use of more energy and water-efficient practices.

This creates incentives for alternative energy approaches that will lower energy costs and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. It also encourages the development of ``green infrastructure'' that decreases the amount of storm water that enters our waterways, relieving some of the strain on our aging wastewater treatment systems.

It also provides the States with increased flexibility in financing packages so they can offer the cities and local communities principal forgiveness and negative interest loans. This is intended to assist communities in meeting their water quality infrastructure goals, which is critical in this time of economic stress.

Title II of the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 provides funding for the pilot program for alternative water source projects, and this program provides $250 million in grant funding for a variety of projects, such as water reuse and recycling.

Title III of the legislation reauthorizes the Sewer Overflow Grant Program. This section provides $1.8 billion over the next 5 years in grant funding for States to control combined sewer overflows. These overflows discharge annually an estimated 850 billion gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage directly into local waters.

In addition, combined sewer overflows are often the direct cause of beach closures, contamination of drinking water supplies, and other environmental and public health problems. This program will help address the critical needs of the approximately 700 communities in the United States that still depend on combined sewer systems.

Title IV of the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 creates a new Sewer Overflow Right-To-Know program. The legislation amends the Clean Water Act to require owners and operators of publicly owned treatment works to notify Federal and State agencies, public health officials, and the public of sewer overflows. This is an important step to increase transparency of this public health-related information and to protect the well-being of the public.

Finally, Title V of the legislation completes some unfinished business in last year's Great Lakes Legacy Act. This provides funding for the cleanup of contaminated sediment around the Great Lakes.

My colleagues, it has been over 20 years since Congress last authorized appropriations for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. These programs cannot wait any longer while the quality of our water deteriorates. It is time that Congress completes the task of sending these important provisions to the President for signing.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting for this act.

Mr. Chairman, anyone who drives on our bridges and roads, ships freight through our rivers and locks, or who has the responsibility to maintain our water quality knows that our country's infrastructure system needs attention. We as a Nation have allowed important components of our economic security to fall into disrepair.

Maintaining municipal water infrastructure has long been a local responsibility. It's a difficult task. Around the country, many communities have gotten behind.

To address this problem, we need a collective effort that focuses both on reducing cost and on increasing investment in water infrastructure at all levels, including Federal, State and local governments, local ratepayers and the private sector. No one element will be able to carry this responsibility alone.

The Congress believes in helping those communities that need help to get back into control of their wastewater management program and developing good management practices to ensure that the Federal Government does not become the financing mechanism of choice for these systems.

Our Nation's quality of life and economic well-being rely on clean water. However, that challenge to continue providing clean water is substantial, as our existing national wastewater structure is aging, deteriorating and in need of repair, replacement and upgrading.

As a Nation, we are not investing enough in our wastewater infrastructure to ensure that we will continue to keep our waters clean. Unless we act, we could lose the significant gains in water quality that have been achieved over the last 30 years.

In addition to reauthorizing the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, the bill also extends the pilot program under the Clean Water Act for alternative water source projects. Many communities are finding that their water needs cannot be met by existing water supplies. As a result, they are looking at alternative ways to alleviate their water shortages and enhance water supplies to meet their future water needs.

Some of these approaches they are looking at involve reclaiming, reusing or conserving water that has already been used. This bill helps them do that.

H.R. 1262 provides an authority to help communities meet some of their critical water supply needs through water reclamation, reuse, conservation and management. The bill authorizes $250 million over 5 years for the EPA to make grants to water resource development agencies for these sorts of alternative water source projects.

Another provision of H.R. 1262 reauthorizes grants to help communities address the widespread problem in our country of sewer overflows. As a result of inadequate or outdated wastewater infrastructure, raw sewage can flow into rivers or back up into people's basements. To provide communities some assistance to meet these needs, the bill authorizes additional resources for EPA to make sewer overflow control grants totaling $1.8 billion to States and local communities.

The Water Quality Investment Act also contains a provision to improve the public's confidence in the quality

of our Nation's waters and protect public health and safety. This provision requires that communities monitor for potential overflows in their sewer systems and notify the public whenever a release would threaten public health and safety. The public has a right to know when their lives are threatened by sewer releases.

Also included in this reauthorization is a reauthorization of the Great Lakes Legacy Act, authored by Vern Ehlers and enacted in 2002. The Great Lakes Legacy Act authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to carry out qualified sediment remediation projects and conduct research and development of innovative approaches, technologies and techniques for the remediation of contaminated sediment in the Great Lakes.

While I agree very much with the clean water goals of H.R. 1262, I am disappointed that the majority included language that requires Davis- Bacon wage rates to be used for all projects receiving any money from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. Even projects paid for with State contributed funds will be subject to the higher wage rates.

I am not a supporter of Davis-Bacon, because it will make clean water projects cost more. It will especially hurt small disadvantaged communities who are trying to clean up their local waters, and it will force States that do not have their own prevailing wage rate law to adopt the expensive Federal Davis-Bacon requirement. The result will be fewer projects, fewer jobs and less clean water.

Despite my concerns with Davis-Bacon, I believe this to be a very, very good bill, a very, very good underlying bill, and I very much support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I will continue to reserve.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he would like to our distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong support of H.R. 1262, the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009. As previously stated, this legislation is an accumulation of five bills that individually overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives in the 110th Congress but which were held up or significantly altered in the Senate.

I echo the comments made by Chairman Oberstar at the Transportation and Infrastructure markup, that, by bundling these bills together, we can make it even easier for the Senate to act quickly. The provisions in this bill will go far toward helping restore and protect the Great Lakes, the largest fresh water source on the planet.

I have spent a considerable amount of time on this issue over the years. I want to deeply thank Chairman Oberstar for his dedication to this and his willingness to combine these bills in a very meaningful fashion. I also thank Mr. Boozman for his good work on it, and Ranking Member Mica for his help as well.

Of particular interest to me is the reauthorization of the Great Lakes Legacy Act. The Great Lakes are plagued by toxic contaminants from years of industrial pollution that have settled in the sediment of tributaries to the lakes. These legacy pollutants degrade the health of both humans and wildlife and, if they are not cleaned up, they will remain toxic for generations to come.

We have known about these toxic materials for years. We lived in the vain hope that they might just stay in the sediments at the river bottom and not move into the lakes. But we now know that they are moving into the lakes. And that is the reason I authored the Legacy Act several years ago.

I have to say that the highest compliment I have received on that bill, and I have received it numerous times, is that this is the most effective, best Federal cleanup bill that was ever passed. Maybe we can now use this as a successful model to go back and clean up all the rest of the toxic dumps using the same approach we used here.

That is why I introduced the Great Lakes Legacy Act in the 107th Congress. With bipartisan support, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Legacy Act in 2002. Since then, the Legacy Act has been heralded, as I said, as the best and most effective Federal environmental cleanup program.

The interesting aspect of it, which was gratifying in some ways but disappointing in others, is that while the President of the United States every year requested the full authorization in his budget request, the Congress did not appropriate the money that the President had suggested. And I hope, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, that we can both work on this and make sure the appropriators are willing to appropriate the full ammount that the President requests. We would be far ahead in cleaning up the toxic sediments.

Last year, Chairman Oberstar and I introduced the Great Lakes Legacy Reauthorization Act, which increased the authorization from $50 million per year to $150 million per year for 5 years. According to the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy, if fully appropriated, this amount can potentially clean up all of the toxic sediments in the Great Lakes watershed in 10 years. That would be a major accomplishment at relatively low cost, and will stop the problem for all time.

Although the House last year passed this bill by a resounding 371-20 vote, the Senate was unable to overcome the objection of a single Senator who did not want to increase this authorization. A compromise was reached to reauthorize the program at its prior funding level, but to only reauthorize the program for 2 years.

During floor debate last year, Chairman Oberstar vowed to address this issue in the 111th Congress, and I am grateful that he has honored that promise in one of the first committee water bills to be taken up by the House in this Congress.

I also thank Chairman Oberstar and Ranking Member Mica for their support, as well as Ranking Member Boozman. Their dedication to the Great Lakes issues have been most appreciated throughout the entire Midwest. The Great Lakes are the greatest treasure of pure water in the United States, and I am convinced that in the future water is going to be worth more than oil to the industrial machinery of our Nation. I believe you will see a resurgence of manufacturing and population around the Great Lakes, simply because of the availability of abundant clean water.

I am hopeful the Senate will be able to pass this bill soon so that we can

speed our efforts to clean up and protect the Great Lakes. I urge all Members to support this important legislation. Once again, I thank all those who worked so hard on these bills so that they could reach this state. We hope to see them signed into law very soon.

Thank you, again, for the time.

I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding, and appreciate his leadership.

As our ranking Republican leader on the Water Resources Subcommittee, I also want to thank Mr. Oberstar, my chairman of the full committee, who I am pleased to work with on our side of the aisle in what has been I think an example for the Congress, a bipartisan relationship, during the last 2 years. I want to compliment him on the water resources bill that we did together, when we sat down and we said we had not reauthorized water resources legislation for some 7 years, and we made a commitment together that we thought was in the best interest of the Nation.

Previously, the authorization levels were $4 billion or $5 billion. The bill that we offered, and there had been a backlog of projects and need for investment in our water resources infrastructure, was a $24 billion measure which, unfortunately, got vetoed by the former President. But I helped in leading the 107th veto override in the history of the Congress, because both Mr. Oberstar and I, Democrats and Republicans, agreed. There were some disagreements with the administration, but we agreed that we had to invest in this Nation's infrastructure; that our sewer systems, our water systems, the basic infrastructure of this country needed that investment. We can't have in the United States Third-World water and sewer systems or storm drainage systems or antiquated municipal systems that serve our people, and essential public services that are outdated, aging, crumbling. So we made that commitment together.

Now, I was noticing that this legislation here, we passed five bills last time. Four of the bills, and I have the votes here, were all over 360 votes, a very small number of people in opposition to four of the votes. I think I supported all four of the measures. We did combine, however, in here an important bill that the chairman led, the provisions of House Resolution 720, that reauthorized State resolving funds and provides $13 billion over 5 years in Federal assistance to further capitalize the funds for these projects, and this is a very important fund.

Now, let me just say that while I am supportive of the overall legislation, even the level of funding that we put in here, I do have one reservation about the extension of the requirement for prevailing wage. And this is not a union-set wage; that is not the issue; it is a prevailing wage, and the way it is assessed in some of our areas. We have 18 States that will be penalized by having their funds that previously weren't subject to this, and they are State funds, and funds that come back into their fund are now also made subject to this prevailing Federal wage provision. And that is the one objection I do have to this legislation. Another gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mack) will offer an amendment, which we all agreed should be fully debated and heard. But that is my issue.

Now, if that provision comes out of the bill, I would support the entire measure. I am sorry that this small point that I disagree on would cause me not to support this bill on final passage if it is included. But this is basically a good piece of legislation. It does have a question about extension of some of these things, these prevailing wage issues and, again, the way they assess this prevailing wage; and maybe we should go back and change this.

First of all, I have no problem with prevailing wage, and we should have it in our large urban areas. We should also give States discretion to set levels of wage even beyond the Federal requirement, and some of those jurisdictions do. We do have a Federal minimum wage, so no one is trying to make people work for less than the Federal minimum. But sometimes the area in which we assess that prevailing wage does expand into some of the smaller communities. So they are going to be paying more and getting less, or marginal projects will get left behind because they don't have the resources that they can expend. And it does, again, diminish the amount of money that they can have available by

this new requirement. So that is the one area of disagreement we have.

I compliment the staff, the ranking member's, Ms. Johnson--I don't see her here today--Mr. Oberstar, and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) for their leadership on this issue, and I hope we can proceed. And I hope that even if this does pass today with that provision, that we can work with the other body and make the basic provisions of this legislation the law of the land and improve our infrastructure.