Herb Kohl: “I rise in opposition to the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire on unfunded mandates, and I do so as a cosponsor…”

“I rise in opposition to the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire on unfunded mandates, and I do so as a cosponsor of S. 933, which is Senator Kempthorne's Community Regulatory Relief Act. When I cosponsored that legislation, I did so because I believed that Congress does not give enough consideration to the costs it imposes on communities when it passes legislation. We debate the merits of each piece of legislation individually, but rarely do we consider the cumulative costs we impose on the communities. I cosponsored S. 933 because I believe that we need to be taking a comprehensive approach in our efforts to rein in the costs we impose on the communities in our States. We should not, however, agree to piecemeal approaches to fix this problem. Mr. President, I believe that the Gregg amendment represents such a piecemeal, and therefore inappropriate, effort to address this matter. Further, I believe that the unfunded mandate concept applied in a piecemeal manner to the Safe Drinking Water Act results in some potentially perverse conclusions. If we pass this amendment, we are essentially giving carte blanche authority to local officials to decide whether or not to enforce drinking water standards. There is no explanation in this amendment of exactly how it will determine what is funded and what is not funded.”