Mike Conaway: “reclaiming my time, currently rural communities across America are being forced to comply with extremely costly…”

“reclaiming my time, currently rural communities across America are being forced to comply with extremely costly regulations regarding arsenic and radionuclide standards that have been established by the EPA. There is no data available to support the assertions made by the EPA that these regulations materially protect public health and safety. I am concerned that the current EPA rules are not supported by public health information, that the results from unvalidated mathematical models are used to support these rules, and that the rules are unnecessarily creating a category of radioactive waste for which there is currently no approved method of disposal. Mr. Chairman, my comments are supported by the EPA's own statement and the notice of data availability document from April of 2000. ``EPA recognizes the inherent uncertainties that exist in estimating health impacts at the low levels of exposure, and the exposure rates expected to be present in the environment. EPA also recognizes that at these levels, the actual health impact from ingested radionuclides will be difficult if not impossible to distinguish from natural disease incidences, even using very large epidemiological studies employing sophisticated statistical analysis. Mr. Chairman, I believe the rural communities are not protected, but rather are harmed by water standards that allegedly promote health at the expense of economic well being.…”