Max Baucus: “Let me ask another question so we understand how it operates. Let us say a community in New Hampshire is starting to…”

“Let me ask another question so we understand how it operates. Let us say a community in New Hampshire is starting to install a new technology to meet a standard that is provided for in the Safe Drinking Water Act; a good standard; a standard that must be addressed if the people are going to have safe water. Let us further assume that this is a 5-year project. You do not just build this new technology and install it immediately. Now let us say it is year one and contracts have been let. As the Senator knows, under the usual workings of the State revolving loan fund, each year the State designates a different portion of the State revolving loan fund, actually loans different portions to different communities in different years. So in year one, the system is not yet constructed. Certainly no big mandate here. Let us say that for some reason or another the system decides it does not want to proceed and therefore is in violation of the law, although there is a contract and assurance that the dollars are there in the revolving loan fund. Is the Senator saying because the dollars have not been fully provided, because the system is not complete yet, that----”