Max Baucus: “I take my hat off to the Senator from Nebraska. He has worked long and hard with the committee to make this a better…”

“I take my hat off to the Senator from Nebraska. He has worked long and hard with the committee to make this a better bill. I have had many discussions with the Senator from Nebraska in the last couple of months, as with his colleague, Senator Kerrey from Nebraska. It is no idle statement, Mr. President, to say very clearly that this is a better bill because of the work of the Senator from Nebraska. The two areas that he particularly focused on were viability--that is, the bill is now modified pursuant to amendment by the Nebraska delegation, frankly, so that States can now set up voluntary viability procedures. States, at their own discretion, would have the power to set up a process to help encourage very small water systems to combine, consolidate, and to share administrative expenses, and so forth, so that they are in the nature of a larger system rather than a smaller system. Second, the Senator has helped to improve the bill with respect to monitoring the flexibility; that is, enabling States to have their own State monitoring system more easily so that States can better take advantage of the provision of the bill to have different monitoring standards, thereby lowering the costs to small systems.”