Ed Markey — Markey: Clean Water Rule Will Protect Drinking Water

thank you Mr President Mr President Boston's sports teams have had their share of Great Moments after a win you can hear the crowd celebrating by singing a song by the standells that goes like this yeah down by the river down by the banks of the river Charles while I love that dirty water oh Boston the all my home well dirty water signals a win for a Boston team when that is sung the real victory has been beating the pollution in the Charles River and Boston Harbor since the passage of the Clean Water Act Victory is thanks to the implementation of that law which protects sources of our drinking water from pollution and restores dirty Waters back to health we need to keep the Clean Water acts winning streak alive unfortunately the bill the Senate may consider today could end the record of wins for the Clean Water Act its history of success has made the Clean Water Act one of the greatest American success stories before the Clean Water Act there was no federal authority to limit dumping set National water quality standards enforce pollution rules City and household waste flowed untreated into rivers harmful chemicals were poured into wetlands and streams from factories and power plants back then we were all on the honor System Water Supplies were managed by a patchwork of state laws and an appeal to the common good the result Mass pollution on an historic scale using Rivers so toxic that they could ignite in Flames fish dead by the thousands America's riversides became a theater of public hazards and chemical death in short before the Clean Water Act the federal involvement that was necessary America's waterways were its sewers and then in 1969 a public Firestorm was touched off by a Time magazine photo of the Cuyahoga River on fire in Ohio with full-throated support from the public Congress mobilized and produced The Clean Water Act one of the most important pieces of environmental law in the history of the United States the ultimate goal of the Clean Water Act makes waterways safe for people and Wildlife was so popular that in 1972 that a bipartisan Congress overrode a veto by Richard Nixon the successes and the benefits yielded by the pursuit of the goal of clean waterways would prove tremendous in the years ahead the Clean Water Act guards the Nations natural sources of drinking water by guiding how we use them it protects the wetlands the streams and other surface waters that ultimately provide us with drinking water the Clean Water Act has slowed the loss of wetlands known as the kidneys of the landscape because of their ability to remove pollution from the water and they do this for free making Wetlands the most fiscally responsible water recycling system in the world the only alternative to this free service is to put our waters on dialysis by constructing filtration plants for billions of dollars in long-term maintenance and building costs our wetlands support the United States 6.6 trillion dollar Coastal economy which comprises about half of the nation's entire gross domestic production and includes our nearly 7 billion dollar annual fishery and 2.3 billion recreational industry the Clean Water Act has doubled the number of swimmable and fishable rivers in the United States it has saved billions of tons of fertile soil from being washed off of our Farms it has fostered state and federal collaboration giving States a key role in managing poisonous runoff from cities and Farms it established a permitting system to control what gets dumped into America's waterways it developed fair and objective Lucian controls standards to help industries plan their compliance investments in advance it sets science-based water quality standard and requires well thought out plans to meet them it's environmental monitoring requirements prevent rehabilitated waterways from backsliding into unusable conditions it provides two billion dollars annually in critical funding to States for water quality and infrastructure improvements and among its most important contributions it empowers citizens to enforce its provisions and actively guard the health of their families all of its benefits and successes however the Clean Water Act has still not reached its goal one-third of our Rivers still have too much pollution when these drain into Coastal Waters they add to the problems being caused by ocean acidification and warming the pollution can cause dead zones off of our coast and in the Great Lakes putting drinking water supplies at risk and threatening sea life and while the ACT has slowed their loss Wetlands continue to disappear and gone with them are millions of wetland-dependent creatures like ducks and turtles and most of the species of fish we find on our plates clearly clean water must be preserved for the health of the public the environment and the economy and that is why the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps have spent so much time developing the recently finalized clean water rule the Clean Water rule clears up confusion caused by two U.S UF Green Court rulings on the reach of federal water pollution laws and restores protections that were eliminated for thousands of wetlands by President George W bush in his administration specifically the rule revises the definition of waters of the United States a term which identifies which waters and wetlands are protected under the Clean Water Act the rule was written in response to requests for increased predictability and consistency of Clean Water Act permitting programs made by stakeholders like National Association of home builders and the National Stone sand and gravel Association the Clean Water rule restores clear protection to 60 percent of the nation's streams and millions of Acres of wetlands that were Stripped Away under the previous Republican Administration the EPA estimates that the returning of these clean water protections will provide roughly half a billion dollars in annual public benefits including reducing flooding damage filtering pollution supporting over 6 million jobs and over a half a trillion dollar outdoor recreation industry the rule protects Public Health by closing pollution loopholes that threaten drinking water supplies for one third of Americans in Massachusetts the drinking water of nearly three in four people will now be protected the rule enjoys broad support from local governments small businesses scientists and the general public which submitted over eight hundred thousand favorable public comments eighty percent of Americans support the Clean Water Rule and when asked if Congress should allow it to go forward they responded with a resounding yes despite public support for clean water and this Common Sense rule the Republicans want to bring a bill to the floor that would undermine the national goals and policy written by the Clean Water Act if enacted this water polluting bill will undermine the legal framework that protects our water it would once again leave one third of the nation's drinking water vulnerable to dangerous contamination and it will a fight over technical details that would prevent us from protecting the Public's Health by preventing The Dumping of toxic toxic chemicals into natural public drinking water sources and the critics falsely claim that the Clean Water rule overreaches because it enables broader Federal jurisdiction than is consistent with law and Science and so ladies and gentlemen I support the work that the EPA and the omnicore have done and putting together the Clean Water rule it will continue the string of Victories that our nation has enjoyed under the Clean Water Act and I urge my colleagues to oppose any legislative efforts to overturn the Clean Water rule we need to keep the Clean Water Act working for all of America and I want to make sure that the only place in Massachusetts people are talking about dirty water is after one of our great Boston sports teams have chalked up another Victory that's the only time we should be singing about dirty water because otherwise the health and well-being not just of people in Massachusetts but all across our country will be harmed so Mr President I