Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
U.S. Funding In Iraq Creates Controversy
Chattanooga Times Free Press
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's proposal to spend more than $20
billion on reconstruction for Iraq and Afghan-istan while there are so many
needs at home is becoming a lightning-rod issue.
America's infrastructure -- water and sewer systems, power grids, roads, schools
and airports -- is in such poor shape that it needs an additional $1.6 trillion
in repairs over the next five years, according to a report this month from the
American Society of Civil Engineers.
For example, the Environmental Protection Agency says local water and $535
billion over the next 20 years to keep waterways from growing more polluted.
Each year, more than 1 trillion gallons of raw sewage escape aging treatment
plants and pollute U.S. waters.
But the Bush administration proposes to spend $3.7 billion in taxpayers' $1.8
billion on the EPA programs that help upgrade local U.S. water and sewer
systems, the main federal programs devoted to this purpose.
"It is mind-boggling that the president can recognize the importance of water
infrastructure needs in Iraq, but is blind to our needs here at home," said Sen.
James Jeffords, a Vermont independent who's on the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee. "As recent events have shown, we cannot keep ignoring our water
needs. Unfortunately, this administration's concern for clean water is murky at
best."
A top Republican has similar concerns.
"If we can spend $1 billion a week in Iraq, we should be doing the same type of
things in this country," said Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., chairman of the
House of Representatives Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee.
To be sure, in America most spending on water and sewer systems comes from local
taxes, but the federal government has always played a role, and $9.7 billion on
those $21.7 billion in today's dollars.
Moreover, state and local governments are cash-strapped today after the bust of
the late '90s high-tech boom and the economic slowdown that followed, and if the
growing need is to be met, many experts think more federal money will be
necessary.
Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget,
said it was unfair to compare one-time help for Iraq to longtime federal aid for
U.S. water and sewer systems, which totals trillions of dollars over time.
"The Iraq costs are one-time shots in the arm," Duffy said. "There is no
comparison. You can't compare one-time (spending) with recurring costs."
Moreover, Duffy argued, on balance the Bush administration does spend more on
American water and sewer programs than on Iraqi systems because other federal
money helps in addition to EPA water and sewer grants. Duffy $1.7 billion in
proposed water supply spending by the Agriculture and $4 billion, much of it on
flood control.
But that spending isn't equivalent to rebuilding water and sewer systems, either
in America or Iraq, and is peripheral to the real U.S. problem, said Ken Kirk,
the executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, the
lobby for U.S. sewer agencies.
Kirk agreed that America needs to rebuild Iraq, but he said that didn't excuse
neglecting problems at home.
A majority of ordinary Americans feel similarly, judging by recent polls. $87
billion for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan,
according to a Pew Research Center poll last week.
Another survey commissioned by Kirk's group and conducted last spring by Luntz
Research, a Republican public opinion and consulting firm, found that 70 percent
of those polled said clean drinking water was a national issue and the federal
government should help states and localities pay for improvements.
"This issue is NOT going to go away," Luntz Research wrote in a May memo to the
sewer lobby.
It surfaced this past week on Capitol Hill.
When L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq reconstruction, testified
before the House Budget Committee on Monday, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, $400 million for
a wastewater treatment plant. ... So when we give this money to this (Iraq)
effort, it means we're taking it away from our own people."
The Pew Research poll of 1,500 adults was taken Sept. 17-22, and has a margin of
error of 3 percentage points.
The Luntz survey, taken in May, involved 800 registered voters and has a margin
of error of 3.5 percentage points.