Volume 141, No. 59 covering the 1st Session of the 104th Congress (1995 - 1996) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE ROMERO-BARCELO” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E745-E746 on March 30, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE ROMERO-BARCELO
______
HON. CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO
of puerto rico
in the house of representatives
Thursday, March 30, 1995
Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Mr. Speaker, reducing costly and unnecessary regulatory burdens has become a leading theme in the 104th Congress. Today, I am introducing legislation that promotes this goal. The Environmental Protection Agency has demanded that Puerto Rico institute costly secondary treatment at one of the island's wastewater treatment facilities despite any showing that it will improve the environment and without considering whether less costly alternatives would be equally or even more effective. This legislation, first, provides for an independent study of the relative costs, benefits, and feasibility of alternatives to secondary treatment for wastewater discharged through a deep ocean outfall from the Mayaguez wastewater treatment plant, and second, permits Puerto Rico to apply for, and EPA to consider, a waiver of secondary treatment requirements under the Clean Water Act if such a waiver is appropriate.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a reasonable, cost-effective solution to what has become an interminable, intractable series of negotiations and court battles between Puerto Rico and the EPA over abstruse points of administrative law--at considerable expense to the American taxpayers. Section 301(h) of the Clean Water Act provides that EPA may waive secondary treatment standards for publicly owned treatment works [POTW's] that meet certain effluent standards. But the EPA contends it is time-barred from considering a waiver application for the Mayaguez POTW.
[[Page E746]] Under the 1977 Clean Water Act Amendments, coastal communities--mainland and island--were permitted a time-limited opportunity to apply for exemptions from secondary treatment requirements if they met very stringent environmental standards for ocean discharges. Overall, EPA has granted 39 waivers. All applications were required to be submitted to EPA by December 29, 1982. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority [PRASA] submitted 12 waiver applications, and 6 have been tentatively approved. Only two applications--including one for the Mayaguez treatment facility--were denied, in December 1993. The EPA insists that the Mayaguez POTW construct secondary treatment facilities costing approximately $100 million, despite significant evidence that other, far less-costly alternatives would be equally, or even more, effective in protecting the surrounding marine environment.
Puerto Rico has proposed construction of a deep water outfall situated more than 300 feet deep and several miles from shore as an alternative to secondary treatment at the Mayaguez POTW. This would save the Commonwealth about $65 million. Substantial scientific evidence gathered from similarly situated POTW's with deep ocean outfalls indicates that such methods can achieve the equivalent of secondary treatment standards or better.
The evidence was so compelling in the instance of San Diego, CA, that Congress last year enacted, and the President signed into law, legislation permitting EPA to consider a section 301(h) waiver application proposing a similar alternative to secondary treatment--
notwithstanding that such a waiver otherwise would be time-barred under the Clean Water Act. Puerto Rico deserves the same opportunity to implement cost-effective alternatives and seek a section 301(h) waiver.
This is not simply an issue of fairness or cost-effectiveness; it is also an issue of science.
The Clean Water Act was intended to improve the marine environment. There is significant scientific evidence that suggesting that a new deep ocean outfall at the Mayaguez POTW would best protect the surrounding marine environment. Furthermore, this legislation would require a scientific study of the issue by the U.S. Geological Survey, an impartial agency with no interest in the outcome. Puerto Rico is willing to share 50 percent of the financing necessary for the study.
There are numerous precedents of such limited exceptions to the requirements of section 301. The municipal wastewater treatment construction grant amendments of 1981 included a provision that extended the date under which section 301(h) waivers could be requested and specifically permitted the city of Avalon, CA, to receive such a waiver. The Water Quality Act of 1987 included a specific exception for the Irvine Ranch Water District that permitted it also to file for a waiver after the deadline.
The 1981 provision specifically reexamined section 301(h) and concluded: ``failure to broaden eligibility * * * risks requiring treatment for treatment's sake, involving the expenditure of funds which could be better used to achieve additional water quality benefits elsewhere.'' This provision does not grant variances. It simply allows variances to be sought with the burden on the applicant to make its case on environmental grounds.\1\ Such logic applies fully to this legislation.
\1\H. Rep. No. 97-270, 97th Cong. 1st Sess. at p. 17.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I urge our colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and on the Resources Committee to consider this bill and its common sense approach to the regulatory burden confronting Puerto Rico. I understand that the EPA is receptive to this change in the law, which can only improve the marine environment off the west coast of Puerto Rico, and which will apply these regulatory requirements with cost effectiveness and flexibility, rather than rigidly and without regard to their consequences.
____________________
Alerts Sign-up