James Oberstar: “We are talking about a Federal mandate here. It is good policy. We need to protect our critical clean water resources.…”

“We are talking about a Federal mandate here. It is good policy. We need to protect our critical clean water resources. But this is a Federal mandate put on our local communities. The Republicans, for 12 years, have failed to reauthorize this law and have consistently cut funding to our communities in the face of this unfunded Federal mandate. The backlog has grown from $300 to $500 billion over the next 20 years to maintain, rehab and, yes, do some new construction for population growth. We have here a very aptly named ``SAP'' from the White House. The White House says $14 billion is excessive. Let's see, that is about 3 to 5 percent of the demonstrated need in this unfunded mandate on our communities, and the White House says, 3 to 5 percent, that's excessive. And then they go on with this ideological claptrap: ``It will distort market signals by discouraging utilities and their consumers from moving toward full cost pricing, and they will delay undertaking projects.'' My community is under consent agreements under law, under Federal law to do this. They can't delay. What a bunch of claptrap. They are trying to take care of Wall Street here and not Main Street.”