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House Passes Wastewater Security Bill
WATER RESOURCES
E&E Daily
05/08/2003
Damon Franz, Environment & Energy Daily reporter
The House yesterday nearly unanimously passed legislation that would provide $200 million in federal grants for publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities to assess their vulnerability to terrorist attack and find ways to improve security.
The House approved the measure, the Wastewater Treatment Works
Security Act (H.R. 866), by a 413-2 vote. Sponsored by House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and the panel's ranking
member James Oberstar (D-Minn.), H.R. 866 authorizes the Environmental
Protection Agency to establish a $200 million grant program for publicly owned
treatment facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and security
enhancements.
Similar legislation passed the House during the 107th Congress but failed to
reach a House-Senate conference because of significant differences with its
Senate Democratic counterpart.
"This legislation is designed to help wastewater treatment utilities take
immediate and necessary steps to improve security at their facilities and to
fill a remaining major security gap with our nation's critical infrastructure,"
Young said. "This is the same bipartisan bill that passed the House in the last
Congress. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to act on it then. I urge our
colleagues in the other body to pass H.R. 866 as soon as possible, so that we
can begin to address this issue. We cannot accept any weak links in the security
of our nation's infrastructure."
It is unclear at this point how the Senate will handle the wastewater security
issue this year. An aide to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the lawmaker with top jurisdiction over the
issue, said in February that the EPW panel will first focus on a major highway
reauthorization measure this session before venturing into other areas.
So far, only Democrats have introduced wastewater security legislation in the
Senate. Their bill is also a replica of last year's version and sits within S.
6, the comprehensive homeland security measure from Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle (D-S.D.). The wastewater measure includes a $200 million grant program
but, as it did last year, differs from its House counterpart by allowing EPA to
review alternative water treatment processes should an attack take place. The
Senate bill also calls on EPA to keep and review the emergency plans. The House
bill does not require a utility that receives a grant to disclose the materials
to EPA.
Elsewhere in H.R. 866 is a provision that would provide $15 million in technical
assistance on security measures to small, publicly owned treatment works. Small
systems have complained to lawmakers and the government that a rash of new
federal security mandates would cause significant rate increases for their
customers in order to gain compliance.
The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, which prefers the House bill
to the Senate Democrats' version, applauded yesterday's action. "AMSA's nearly
300 public agency members, who serve the majority of the U.S. population, are
public servants dedicated to making clean water progress and to ensuring that
their plants, employees and customers are made as safe as possible," said AMSA
Executive Director Ken Kirk. "H.R. 866 will provide municipalities with the
tools needed to meet this important objective."