Political Quotes

“this is an amendment to the first excepted committee amendment. It increases the amount provided for drinking water State revolving funds by $725 million in recognition of the fact that, on August 1, 1996, funds previously appropriated for drinking water State revolving funds were reallocated to clean water State revolving funds pursuant to a requirement in the fiscal year 1996 omnibus appropriations bill. Congress mandated this transfer if a drinking water authorization bill had not been enacted into law as of that date. That measure was enacted less than 1 week after the August 1 deadline, and we believe it is appropriate that these funds be restored. The funds which have been released for clean water revolving funds can be considered as an advance on the fiscal year 1997 appropriation. This amendment simply adjusts the new appropriations to reflect this prior funding and will have no effect on our intended program levels. We gave our assurances to members of the authorizing committee that this would be one of the first orders of business as we dealt with this bill. The members of the committee worked so hard for the passage of the safe drinking water measure. We are very anxious to have these funds available, and the funds under this amendment will be available crediting the transfer of the funds on August 1 to the clean water revolving fund account for 1997 and giving the 1996 appropriations along with the 1997 appropriations to drinking water.”