J. Exon: “I rise to encourage support for the managers' compromise amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act legislation. I also…”

“I rise to encourage support for the managers' compromise amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act legislation. I also commend Senators Baucus and Chafee, as well as their staffs, for working out with a group of us to put the amendment before us that I think will allow the passage of this important measure. It has taken months of painstaking negotiations and considerable effort to reach this point, and I believe our negotiations have resulted in a good product. The absolute necessity of reforming the Safe Drinking Water Act has been clear to me for some time. I can hardly convey to my colleagues the depths of frustration held by State and local officials whose job it is to comply with the existing law. By far, the vast majority of those folks want to provide clean, safe drinking water and feel overwhelmed by a regulatory framework that simply does not make sense in the real world. The amendment before us meets the essential requirements for reform that I have held for some time: that the new law must help small communities; that the Environmental Protection Agency must be required to base its regulations on science instead of fear; that we absolutely have to get rid of the arbitrary standard setting requirements; and, finally, that we do this in a way that reduces costs while maintaining public health and public safety.”