(Washington D.C.)- U.S. Rep. Sander Levin (D-Royal Oak) made the following floor statement in support of H.R. 720, the Water Quality Financing Act:

I rise in strong support of the Water Quality Financing Act.  The bill before the House calls for a significant and needed increase in the annual Federal contribution to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund program.  This may not be a well known program, but it has been absolutely critical to water quality improvements in my district, and in many other communities around the country.

The Clean Water Revolving Fund is the only major federal program that helps localities build, repair, and improve their sewer infrastructure.  Over the years, the Revolving Fund has provided more than a billion dollars to my home state of Michigan for low-interest loans for water infrastructure projects. 

A billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it is literally just a drop in the bucket compared to the need.  In southeast Michigan alone, maintaining and improving our aging sewer systems will cost between $14 and $26 billion over the next 30 years. 

Let me tell you what the Clean Water Revolving Fund has meant to my district.  In the early 1990s, the Clinton River that runs through my district in Oakland and Macomb Counties was little more than an open sewer.  In particular, there was one, large combined sewer system called 12 Towns that spilled hundreds of millions of gallons of partially treated sewage into the Clinton River each year.  This contributed to a nearly dead river and closed beaches downstream in Lake St. Clair.  It was a major concern to both Oakland and Macomb counties.

In the late 1990s, the communities undertook an expensive renovation project at 12 Towns that has greatly reduced the sewer overflows.  The communities bore the full expense for this project, which cost well over $100 million, but the low interest rates provided by the Revolving Fund saved the communities tens of millions of dollars in interest costs.  The result is that the Clinton River is making a comeback.  Water quality is improving.
 
Twelve Towns is not an isolated example.  The Revolving Fund has also helped many other communities in my district with critical water quality improvements.  We could not have accomplished the progress that has been made to clean up the Clinton River and Lake St. Clair without the Revolving Fund's help.

The federal government has to do more - not less - to help communities shoulder the burden of addressing critical water infrastructure needs.  We should have increased the funding for the Revolving Fund long before this; instead, in recent years the Bush Administration and Congress has cut the program again and again.  Just last month, the President's budget proposed to cut $396 million cut to the Revolving Fund.  This takes the effort to clean up the Great Lakes in exactly the wrong direction.

I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting for this important legislation.  We should vote for the bill today and - just as importantly - provide the funding for the Clean Water Revolving Fund when we take up the EPA appropriations bill later this year.  

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