BEACH PROTECTION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - April 10, 2008)
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Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2537, the Beach protection Act of 2008.
This legislation, and the underlying statute that the Beach Protection Act amends, are vital to ensuring that the public is aware of, and protected from coming into contact with, potentially harmful pollutants and contaminants in our coastal recreational waters.
I applaud the efforts of the primary sponsors of this legislation, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. PALLONE, and our colleague on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Mr. BISHOP, for shepherding this important legislation through the hearing process, through Committee markup, and to the floor of the House today.
I also applaud the efforts of the gentleman from California, Mr. BILBRAY, for his efforts back in 2000 to move the initial BEACH Act to the President's desk.
The BEACH Act that was signed into law in October 2000 authorized $30 million annually for beach monitoring and assessment programs and public notification programs for fiscal years 2001 through 2005. It required States and tribes to determine minimum water quality standards that were considered ``safe.''
In many ways, the BEACH Act has proven successful in making the public aware of the presence of potentially harmful water contamination at local beaches, and has brought about a revolution in terms of States creating and implementing coastal recreational water monitoring and notification programs. The benefits we have seen over the last 8 years include uniform standards for coastal recreational water quality, and increased monitoring and notification of such waters.
However, inasmuch as the BEACH Act has been successful in providing more information to the public, the Bush administration's track record on utilizing all of the tools contained in the BEACH Act to protect human health has been far less successful.
For example, the EPA was given authority to promulgate standards for States that did not have sufficient standards as compared to
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those in the 1986 Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Bacteria. EPA was given further direction to continue to study the impacts of waterborne pollutants and bacteria to human health, and to revise the criteria every five years as needed.
Unfortunately, EPA failed to complete this task, as demonstrated by a lawsuit by advocates for safe beaches, and more recently, in a report of the Government Accountability Office (``GAO'').
This GAO Report, entitled ``Great Lakes: EPA and States Have Made Progress in Implementing the BEACH Act, but Additional Actions Could Improve Public Health Protection,'' established that more work could be done to ensure the safety of our beach waters.
Just this week, a Federal District Court judge in California ruled that EPA, again, violated its ``non-discretionary duty'' to complete required studies on revising coastal water quality criteria and standards. Even after losing a similar lawsuit in 2006, EPA continues to argue that the statute gives the Agency the discretion to ``conduct the studies as it sees fit.'' This is contrary to the law, and has once again been dismissed by the Federal District Court judge.
Similarly, the Bush administration has failed to utilize the authorities and direction of the initial BEACH Act to ensure the public has the best, most accurate, and timely information on the condition of their favorite beaches. For example, the BEACH Act called for a creation of a ``National List of Beaches'' that would provide the public with information on which beaches had in place monitoring and notification programs, and which did not. EPA was given the direction to periodically revise this list, based on the availability of new information.
I can assure my colleagues that latest list, published in 2004, is not the most up-to-date assessment of the condition of the Nation's beaches. Again, the administration has failed to utilize the tools provided by Congress to ensure the protection of human health and safety.
Despite the current administration's track record, the BEACH Act is an important law for protecting the public from the presence of harmful pollutants and contaminants in the Nation's recreational waters.
The Beach Protection Act, under consideration today, will further enhance these authorities by working towards real-time, same-day information on the condition of local waters to safeguard against unintentional contact with contaminated waters.
Again, I strongly support the efforts of our colleagues in drafting this important piece of legislation, and urge its adoption.
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