Water Quality Financing Act of 2007

WATER QUALITY FINANCING ACT OF 2007

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Mr. MACK. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the time, and I also want to say that I appreciate the way the committee has worked on a very important issue.

I think all of us understand and recognize that the Clean Water State Revolving Fund is so important to all of our communities. And let's face it, we work for the people back home.

But it is concerning to me that when you have such a positive piece of legislation that can have such a tremendous effect on people's lives back in our districts, that you would add the Davis-Bacon requirements into this.

A few minutes ago we heard from the majority leader that he finds it strange that over here you will have people voting against a minimum wage, and then voting against Davis-Bacon.

Well, it is kind of simple. We believe that, or at least I believe, that competition, the free market, should dictate these projects, not government; that government shouldn't be coming in saying this is how much you are going to pay your employees, or this is how much you are going to have to pay for projects.

And including the Davis-Bacon requirements into this only puts, it makes it so that States like mine have a hard time voting for a piece of legislation that will add, will bring the cost of the construction projects up.

At a time when our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about being fiscally responsible, what they are really committed to, as we heard earlier, their commitment is to raising taxes and spending more money.

I would like to see us, in the future, when we have such a good piece of legislation, one that almost everyone can support, that we do not get in the habit that it appears to be now of payback of some sort to labor and to the unions. It just isn't right. The American people deserve better.

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