James Oberstar: “This amendment builds upon the ongoing work of the Environmental Protection Agency to develop the next generation of…”

“This amendment builds upon the ongoing work of the Environmental Protection Agency to develop the next generation of testing methodologies for coastal recreation waters. These new standards, already well behind schedule, should represent significant improvement over the existing standards for pathogens and pathogen indicators both in terms of accuracy and delivery time. The amendment of our colleague, Mr. Bilbray, calls the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to study the benefits of using a 'molecular diagnostic for monitoring and assessing the quality of coastal recreation waters.' This shift from culture-based testing to molecular diagnostics should significantly reduce the period of time necessary to produce accurate results on the condition of the nation's swimming beaches. By some estimates, the amount of time that would be necessary under this new testing methodology could fall from 24-36 hours to 1-2 hours.”