Volume 151, No. 124 covering the 1st Session of the 109th Congress (2005 - 2006) 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.
“WATER TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL AID” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S10713-S10714 on Sept. 29, 2005.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WATER TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL AID
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, fresh water is a substance that we as Americans assume will be available when and where we want it. However, the disruption of water and wastewater services following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita has shown how fragile those assumptions can be. The resulting fear, panic and instability are what we rarely experience in this Nation. However, as we look around the globe, those same fears, sense of panic, and sense of instability is a daily occurrence for over 1 billion people across the globe who have little or no hope for a speedy resolution of their concerns.
We must help solve the expanding problems of insufficient clean drinking water and inadequate wastewater treatment. These are matters of international importance for several reasons. First, we are a member of an increasingly international economy, and the expansion or contraction of economies the world over affects our industry and economy. Furthermore, disease knows no borders and can spread through water. Most importantly, we care about the well being of others. All these national policy goals are intimately related to adequate water and wastewater treatment across the world.
There are many ways that we can help address this world-wide problem. However, lasting solutions require that local individuals and institutions have the capacity to maintain and expand their own services.
This point has been hammered home by a report to be released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Sandia National Laboratories today. The report reinforces what any organization addressing international water issues already knows: the local community must accept, embrace, maintain and take responsibility for the solution to their water issues. There are several initiatives in place in our country that are helping local communities across the globe in this regard.
The Department of Energy National Laboratories have tested tools and techniques for improving our domestic capacity in the desert southwest. The labs have shared that information with institutions around the globe to help strengthen local capacity.
As an example, Sandia National Laboratories' efforts to create new technologies to address major U.S. water issues are being applied to critical water issues in the strategically important Middle East. Ongoing interactions with Iraq, Jordan, Libya and Israel are helping address water safety, security and sustainability issues with technologies in water management modeling, water quality monitoring and desalination.
Sandia is also working to rebuild Iraq's science and technology capacity in collaboration with the Arab Science and Technology Foundation and the Departments of Energy and State. Just last week in Amman, Jordan, Sandia co-hosted a meeting where proposals developed by Iraqi scientists and their international collaborators were reviewed and presented to international funding agencies. Two such proposals for improving water resources management in Iraq were presented by Sandia staff and their Iraqi counterparts.
Separately, Sandia is working with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization to develop a proposed planning framework for water management in Iraq. This framework will utilize an advanced water management model developed at Sandia coupled with training of Iraqi water managers and scientists. This proposed framework is expected to be presented to Iraq's Ministry of Water in November.
In other areas, Sandia has reached a preliminary agreement with the Royal Scientific Society, RSS, in Jordan to pilot test a new technology for real-time collaborative development of water management models over the Internet. This technology will enable U.S. and Jordanian water experts to jointly assemble, test and deploy water management models, working in real time while half a world apart. Sandia has also developed a proposal with the Jordanians to pilot test real-time water quality monitoring technology utilizing Sandia's chem-lab-on-a-chip technology.
In Libya, Sandia is working on a program with the Departments of Energy and State to refocus former Libyan weapons scientists on development of peaceful technologies that will enable Libya to develop a strong, internationally-engaged economy. Water is a very high priority for the Libyans, and they are reconfiguring their former weapons development laboratory into a facility they have named the Renewable Energy and Water Desalination Research Center. Sandia is helping identify desalination technologies for use in Libya, with particular attention to technologies for treating the brackish water that is produced as a by-product of pumping oil and gas.
Further, Israeli water experts came to Sandia in 2003 to learn about water security. The trip led to a series of visits between Israeli water security experts, the Environmental Protection Agency's National Homeland Security Research Center, and Sandia. These interactions resulted in a collaborative proposal to test Sandia's real-time, chem-
lab-on-a-chip water quality monitoring technology in Israel's water supply system.
Congress helped develop these tools by allowing the Department of Energy Laboratories to use part of their resources for laboratory directed research and development. In the case of Sandia, these seed funds have produced sensor technologies to test water for contaminants and terror agents, numerical models to help groups jointly manage and plan for the future and reduce conflict, water treatment technologies that may reduce costs and make impaired water available for beneficial uses, and tools to detect and respond to terrorist attacks in our municipal drinking water systems. These seed projects have then been extended and are coming to fruition under direct funding we have provided through the Department of Energy, DOE.
The work at Sandia National Laboratory does not represent a comprehensive list of all the achievements within the DOE. In fact, twelve of our national laboratories, all of whom have worked to expand and protect water supplies in some way, have worked jointly for three years to develop an outline of the ways water and energy resources are inter-related. These institutions are now working under DOE direction to develop a report to Congress on this interdependency, which I believe will help us determine which programs will most effectively ensure sufficient water supplies to support our energy needs and sufficient energy supplies to meet our water needs.
Additionally, these national laboratories are now working with both Federal and non-Federal institutions around the U.S. to develop a technology development roadmap. This effort will clearly identify our highest priority investments in research, development and commercialization so we can expand our nations' water supplies.
The success of these investments led us to authorize a new DOE program as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That program is broad. I believe that overall it will help resolve problems related to water just as we are working to resolve our energy supply problems. I am particularly interested in the technology development aspects of the program and therefore plan to introduce a bill soon to instruct the DOE to focus attention on technology development and commercialization. A similar bill was introduced last Congress in partnership with Members from the House, and I have high hope that working together we can pass legislation this Congress.
I must note that DOE efforts are not the only activities that can assist the U.S. in addressing international water issues. The Bureau of Reclamation has a 30-year history of developing desalination technologies that have a significant international impact. The Bureau's reputation and capabilities in this area cannot be underestimated, and I hope the administration will develop a long-term strategy for use and expansion of those resources. Further, I have supported the Office of Naval Research's efforts to develop mobile water treatment technology for our troops. This technology has proven its worth by being deployed to Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Additionally, my colleague and friend, Majority Leader Frist, introduced legislation this spring entitled the ``Safe Water Currency for Peace Act of 2005'', S.492, which directs the Department of State to develop a cohesive international water development policy and then to begin to implement that strategy. This policy effort holds strong promise for the future of water as well.
I believe and remain a champion of the need to look ahead, to see the future of water supplies in this nation and the world and to actively prepare for that future. I have said before, and I still believe, that there is no more important or essential substance to us than water. It is the source from which life springs. It also has the potential to be the source of incredible conflict at both local and international levels. Fresh water supplies are coming under pressure all over the globe. Seriously confronting this problem before it leads to tremendous burdens on this nation and the world is an endeavor as worthwhile as any I can contemplate. The need is great. The goal is good. The initiatives I have discussed today, and others like them, can help us confront this problem.
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