Political Quotes

“I want to first thank the majority leader and Senator Hatch for working with me and Senators Cohen, Kempthorne, Leahy, and Lieberman on this amendment. Throughout this process, they have clearly demonstrated their strong support for the bottled water industry and for bottled water consumers, and they deserve to be commended for their cooperation and good work. I also wanted to clarify a couple of points that were raised during the discussion on the amendment between Senator Hatch and Senator Levin. First, it is definitely correct that the amendment is supported by the bottled water industry. In fact, this legislation has been one of the bottled water industry's biggest priorities for the past couple of years. Second, Senator Levin referenced the FDA's standards for defining spring water. This amendment does not apply to the FDA's spring water definition rules. It applies only to public health standards for bottled water. In addition, I wanted to point out that the big issue here is more the discrepancy in timing between the EPA's and the FDA's issuance of rules for tap water and bottled water, respectively, than it is the bottled water industry's level of enthusiasm for Federal regulation.”