Water Infrastructure Improvement Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7279) to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to provide for an integrated planning process, to promote green infrastructure, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 7279.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to express strong support for my bill, H.R. 7279, the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act, and ask my colleagues to join the bipartisan coalition that worked on this legislation to pass it.

I introduced this bill to help codify into law a useful tool our communities should have at their disposal called integrated planning. Integrated planning provides flexibility for communities when they are confronted with the realities of managing wastewater and stormwater systems. Cities and other municipalities are charged with delivering those water utility services to their residents.

Those same municipalities face the challenges of regulatory mandates from the Environmental Protection Agency for wastewater and stormwater systems. They also face the rising costs of these mandates, which can become severe financial burdens in repairing or replacing aging water infrastructure.

These financial burdens ultimately fall on the ratepayers: the residents of those municipalities, many of whom cannot afford dramatic and immediate increases in their monthly bill. Without flexibility and the ability to prioritize projects so public health and environmental benefits can be maximized, local governments may be forced into costly consent decrees.

Integrated planning helps communities sequence their water projects to meet regulatory or safety obligations more affordably. Cities can use integrated planning to focus on projects that will actually deliver safe and affordable water utility services rather than simply focusing on regulations and red tape.

The Water Infrastructure Improvement Act also creates an important position inside the EPA, the Office of Municipal Ombudsman, to assist municipalities in implementing Agency policy and ensuring local governments are adhering to their responsibilities under the Clean Water Act while utilizing integrated planning.

This bill enjoys bipartisan support in Congress and support from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the American Public Works Association, the National Association of Counties, and the National Association of Regional Councils.

The Water Infrastructure Improvement Act offers a way forward for our communities to take a comprehensive approach to repairing or replacing outdated water systems, to delivering clean and sustainable water services, and to keeping it affordable for the ratepayers and taxpayers.

We all tend to get wrapped up in the headlines of the day. The nonstop calls for outrage dominate cable news, and partisan differences grab everyone's attention. Because of that, the American people very rarely hear or see the real bipartisan work on issues important to their everyday lives like easy access to safe, affordable, and efficient water utilities.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from California (Mrs. Napolitano) for her work on this issue. This is an example of the many issues in Congress that affect the lives of all Americans and that find bipartisan support, yet fly under the radar.

I strongly urge my colleagues to join me, Mrs. Napolitano, Mr. Latta, Ms. Fudge, Mr. Chabot, and Mrs. Bustos in passing the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act so America's municipalities and their residents can maintain access to safe water.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

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

I want to, again, thank my colleague from California, Mrs. Napolitano, for all her help on the other side of the aisle to make this a very bipartisan bill. It is a very commonsense bill.

The key to this that I think needs to be mentioned and emphasized is it gives our local communities flexibility and also encourages all levels of government to work together--the Federal EPA, the State EPA, and the local municipalities--to solve the problems they have at the ground level.

Also in this bill, there is a provision that requires that the new position, the EPA ombudsman, in at least 2 years report back to Congress, the T&I Committee, about what happened with the integrated planning, the specific projects, and review that and see if it needs to be tweaked or not. We will see how it works.

It is very important, working together. You see communities that have been under court orders, court decrees, and they can't get to where they need to get to, and this bill gives them that flexibility and that common sense.

Everybody wants to do the right thing, and this will help them do that and to be working with the EPA in a partnership.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 7279, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 7279, the very bipartisan, as my colleague was saying, Water Infrastructure Improvement Act.

Let me first start by thanking the primary sponsor of the bill, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gibbs), for his great cooperation on this. Let me say that it was a pleasure doing it, and I associate myself with his remarks. It is very bipartisan and something that we all agree on that needs to happen for the people of this Nation to finally reach a bipartisan agreement on this

very important issue after more than 4 years.

This legislation codified the concept from the Obama administration known as integrated planning that can assist communities in meeting their requirements under the Clean Water Act, while maintaining their obligation to achieve improvements in local water quality.

EPA's integrated planning framework provides communities with a voluntary opportunity to prioritize local clean water investments with the greatest benefit to human health and the environment. This is incredibly important to communities in my congressional district, as well as many others, as they meet the challenges of the Los Angeles County MS4 stormwater permit, and also across the Nation.

To be clear, the integrated planning is not about diminishing communities' existing obligations under the Clean Water Act; rather, it provides an opportunity for communities to work with Federal and State regulators to optimize their clean water infrastructure investments.

The sad reality is that, until the Federal Government increases its investment under the Clean Water Act, communities will still struggle with affordability challenges. We can and must do better.

First, we need to reauthorize the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, known as SRF, and I am hopeful that this is one of the first things we will accomplish next year on, again, a very bipartisan basis. We passed similar reauthorization of the drinking water program by voice vote in September. Now is the time for a similar effort to protect local water quality.

Second, we need to address the cost of water and sewer services to these households with the least ability to pay. No hardworking American family should be forced to go without water and wastewater services simply because their local rates are too high. Clean water is a basic human right.

Yes, utilities should be able to recover the costs necessary to upgrade their local systems, but when those costs disproportionately affect individual households, we can and must do much more to help struggling families afford these basic services.

That will be another issue I hope this next Congress will address in the coming year: protecting our Nation's clean water and making it affordable for all American families.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank, first of all, our respective staffs for working together on this. They did a great job, and they did an awful lot of work on it.

Mr. Chabot is right; it has been a long time coming. I have been on the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment more than 20 years, and this is something that came up over 10 years ago that EPA was forcing California restrictions. And California has the strictest rules on air and water.

So this is really an efficient way of being able to help California and other States deal with it.

This bill before us is a very good first step toward ensuring the protection of our Nation's rivers, lakes, and streams and deserves our very strong support.

We have worked with cities, mayors, water agencies, sanitation districts, environmental groups, as well as our colleagues on the other side on this legislation. We are aware of no opposition--none--to this bill.

We thank all stakeholders for their input and support throughout this process.

However, it is my hope that early in the next Congress we can return to the House floor with similar bipartisan legislation to address the funding needs and affordability concerns we discussed earlier. Only then can we say we have delivered on our responsibility to provide clean, safe, and affordable water to all American families, including Native Americans.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very strong support of H.R. 7279, the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act.

I want to thank Congressman Gibbs as well as Congressman Latta, who just spoke previously, Congresswoman Fudge, and a number of others with whom we have been working, literally for years now, to move forward integrated planning and provide more flexibility for local communities to meet clean water standards.

The legislation that we are working on and that we have been involved in here, I think, is critical for communities like mine--Cincinnati, Hamilton County--and communities all over the country.

I want to say a special thanks to Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, who is a Democrat, and County Commissioner Chris Monzel, who is a Republican, in my district. We have been working in a bipartisan manner on this for quite some time now. Commissioner Portune brought this to my attention a number of years ago as Hamilton County dealt with the EPA consent decree that they had entered into many years ago that has literally crippled the sewer system and has caused dramatic price increases for the ratepayers, hundreds of thousands of whom are my constituents.

Commissioner Portune helped to craft the early versions of this legislation, and he and Commissioner Monzel have continued to fight to push this legislation across the finish line.

Oftentimes, when I see Todd Portune back in my area, he will bring this up to me and encourage me. We have been in this together for a long time now, and Commissioner Monzel as well. I, again, especially want to thank Congressman Gibbs for pushing this for many years now. I am so glad that we are actually finally getting there.

The legislation that we are considering today will authorize the EPA to work with local communities on integrated clean water plans that incorporate flexibility and innovative approaches. It will also allow integrated plans to be used to modify administrative orders or consent decrees, and it will allow compliance schedules that are longer than the current permit periods, if the jurisdiction meets its State water quality standards.

That is the important thing. We want more flexibility to give local communities the ability to deal with their problems in a way that makes sense in that community. The problems that New York City has are very different from what a rural Mississippi district or my district, Cincinnati, would have. They are all a bit different.

What we are saying is that you still have to meet those high standards that the EPA sets for clean water. We want our people to drink clean water, but we should give those different communities more flexibility so that they can do what makes sense in their particular community and then save the ratepayers their hard-earned tax dollars.

That is what this is all about, maintaining the high standards that we have, but doing it in a way that allows for more flexibility; the local communities can act according to what is in their best interest.

Together, these commonsense proposals represent a critical first step in addressing this issue as we continue to work on further financial capability guidance so that communities can meet clean water standards in a fiscally responsible manner.

I, again, want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for their leadership on this and for moving this bill

forward. I thank all of the Members who have played a part in this process. It has been a long time coming. A lot of people have worked very hard on this, and I just want to thank all of those who have done this in a bipartisan manner. I would love to see this House work this way even more. We will see.

Mr. Speaker, I missed some votes on Wednesday, December 19, all votes on Thursday, December 20, and some votes today. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

Roll Call Vote Number 440 (Passage of H.R. 7327, the SECURE Technology Act): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 441 (Passage of H.R. 7279, the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 442 (Passage of H.R. 6227, the National Quantum Initiative Act): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 443 (Passage of H.R. 6652): YES;

Roll Call Vote 444 (Passage of S. 1520, the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 445 (Passage of S. 3530, the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 446 (Agreeing to H. Res. 1180): NO;

Roll Call Vote Number 447 (Agreeing to H. Res. 1181): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 448 (Concurring in the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment to S. 756, the First Step Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 449 (Passage of H.R. 7328, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 450 (Concurring in the Senate Amendment to H.R. 5075, the Ashanti Alert Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 451 (Passage of H.R. 7093, the Clean Up the Code Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 452 (Passage of S. 2896, the Justice Against Corruption on K Street Act of 2018 or JACK Act): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 453 (Passage of S. 2961, the Victims of Child Abuse Act Reauthorization Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 454 (Passage of S. 2679, the Veterans Small Business Enhancement Act): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 455 (Passage of H.R. 7227, the Taxpayer First Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 456 (Concurring in the Senate Amendment to H.R. 4227, the Vehicular Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 457 (Passage of S. 2652, the Stephen Michael Gleason Congressional Gold Medal Act): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 458 (Passage of S. 2765, the RBIC Advisers Relief Act of 2018): YES;

Roll Call Vote Number 459 (Concurring in the Senate Amendment to H.R. 5509, the Innovations in Mentoring, Training, and Apprenticeships Act):

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Ohio, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 7279, the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act.

Throughout my tenure in Congress, I have worked on legislation to give our Nation's communities more flexibility to comply with costly regulations in regards to their wastewater infrastructure improvements. In each Congress since 2008, I have introduced legislation that addresses these issues and provides relief to our local communities.

I have heard from many villages, towns, and cities across my district over the years that struggle to meet wastewater and stormwater improvement demands. This legislation is a key step to build on the work I have previously done to provide relief to our constituents by allowing them to more effectively and efficiently meet their specific water needs.

There are billions of dollars worth of water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure needs in the State of Ohio. It is critical to provide communities with the ability to meet their obligations in a more cost-effective manner.

This legislation will codify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Planning Framework and provide additional tools and flexibility for communities to comply with mandated wastewater infrastructure improvement projects.

This is important because it allows municipalities and clean water utilities to decide how best to spend their limited resources. Integrated planning allows communities to allocate funds in a targeted manner, allowing them to focus on the most effective water quality improvements.

Mr. Speaker, again, I want to thank my colleague Representative Gibbs, as well as Representatives Chabot, Napolitano, Fudge, and Bustos for working together to get this bipartisan piece of legislation passed. I will continue to work with my colleagues in both chambers to ensure that this bipartisan bill reaches the President's desk in order to help improve our Nation's water infrastructure and protect the ratepayers.

I urge all my colleagues to support this measure, and, again, I thank my colleague for introducing the legislation.