Barbara Boxer: “shortly we are going to vote; I believe it will be a voice vote on the Inhofe amendment. It is not a controversial…”

“shortly we are going to vote; I believe it will be a voice vote on the Inhofe amendment. It is not a controversial amendment; everybody agrees to it. Then we will proceed to the Barrasso amendment which I have spoken about before. I wish to urge my colleagues to be very careful on this one because it has unintended consequences. The way the Barrasso amendment is drafted, it tries to say, in advance of a rulemaking, that if the rulemaking includes any infrastructure from the guidance that has been put forward by the corps and the EPA--if it even contains anything like it--``the rule will be considered as having been vacated.'' That is a quote. So the bottom line is, the Barrasso amendment is such an overreach that we will keep the whole issue of waters of the United States in chaos--and it is in chaos. We received letters from business people begging us to allow the rulemaking to go forward, but because of the way the Barrasso amendment is drafted, essentially we are not going to ever have a rule. So why is it important to have a rule that is very clear and explains what waters are covered under the Clean Water Act? Let me tell my colleagues why. Without protections of a rule, dangerous pollutants could be put into our waterways. This isn't just hyperbole. We are talking about toxic heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. We are talking about toxins that cause cancer and harm the health of infants and children in particular. Who are the vulnerables?…”