This Subcommittee began and is ending the 111th Congress by holding hearings on very similar topics. In February of 2009, I presided over a hearing on Sustainable Water Infrastructure. Today's hearing focuses on the impact of green infrastructure on the nation's water quality, economy, and communities.
As today's hearing will demonstrate, there are still many things we need to learn about green infrastructure and low impact development. But in the intervening year and a half, we have also come to learn of the advantages of this innovative approach. For example, nationally, 30 percent of clean water and 29 percent of drinking water funds provided through the Recovery Act were used for green infrastructure, and water and energy efficiency improvements. Six states used approximately half of their clean water infrastructure money on green projects. These numbers indicate that there is a growing demand for programmatic and financial support for green infrastructure projects, especially related to clean water and drinking water infrastructure.
Green infrastructure approaches take a very different view to stormwater control. Instead of engineering the stormwater system to deal with increasingly large amounts of stormwater, these low impact development approaches utilize technologies that aim to reduce the amount of stormwater that even enters the system. This is achieved through processes that encourage stormwater to infiltrate the ground or evaporate. Simple approaches such as green roofs, increased tree cover, disconnecting downspouts, and adding more green space can go a long way to reducing the amount of stormwater that enters sewers. And in some circumstances, these technologies can realize significant cost savings for municipalities and building owners.
In this time of economic uncertainty and tight municipal budgets, it may behoove city planners to look in other directions for ways to deal with the impacts of urban stormwater runoff than by solely falling back on traditional, capital-intensive infrastructure approaches. The fact remains, however, that many of these technologies are new and have not been applied in all conditions and cities.
I hope to hear testimony today that will answer a few key questions:
First, what barriers exist with regard to the increased adoption of green infrastructure technologies and approaches?
Second, what can the federal government -- both EPA and the Congress -- do to reduce those barriers?
And third, what processes do EPA and the states use, and should EPA and the states use, to balance the need to promote new technologies, while at the same time protecting water quality?
Finally, I'd like to note that as we think about our water infrastructure options and our water quality goals -- we can do better. We can do better than to discuss policies and approaches as "either this' or "that.'
We need to look beyond the disturbing vision of just an impassive concrete landscape, or the pastoral vision of an Eden-like urban utopia. Instead, we must think of the various tools that we have -- and those which we might have -- to bring to bear site-specific water quality problems. Increasing both options and information are two of the most vital tools we can provide for our state and municipal managers. Therefore, I look forward to looking beyond where we are today, so that we might do better.