make no exceptions today's hearing on bottled water hits close to home my vastly rural district in northern michigan contains more shoreline than any other congressional district except alaska and we have an awareness of water quality fifty six percent of water health and safety as a primary reason they choose bottled water over tap water as a result akins are willing to pay top dollar for bottled water which costs up to nine hundred times more than tap water and uses up to two thousand times more energy to produce and deliver over the past several years however bottled water has been recalled due to contamination by arsenic  mode and bacteria in april it doesn't students at a california junior high school reportedly were second after drinking bottled water from a vending machine consumers may not realize that many of the regulations apply to m responsible for tap water do not apply to companies that produce bottled water i'd like to put up a chart that outlines some of these differences for example tap water suppliers are required to tell their consumers within twenty four hours if they find dangerous contaminants that exceed federal levels but this requirement does not apply to bottled water companies certified laboratories must be used to test tap water bottled water has no similar requirement tap water suppliers provide their consumers customers with consumer confidence report that detail the sources of their water any contamination found the likely cause of contamination and any potential health effects bottled water distributors are not required to provide this report to consumers instead bottled water consumers rely on limited information on labels and in some cases company websites some companies exacerbate this problem by exaggerating claims about the health benefits of their products for example poland springs explains the history of its water when joseph ricker was revived from his spring water explains that the words written on its labels such as healthy and permeate the liquid influencing the beneficial properties of water the company also claims that tap water as well as widespread public perception that bottled water is healthier than water from the tap the first is a report by the government accountability office that was originally questioned by our former colleagues  in this report examines whether federal and state authorities are adequately ensuring the safety of bottled water and the accuracy of claims regarding the health benefits the second report by the environmental working group which conducted in service of bottled water labels and web sites and concluded that just two of the hundred eighty eight bottled water companies surveyed provided consumers with information on the source of their water the manner in which  any contaminants present given these findings by an environmental working group the subcommittee is sending today to a dozen bottled water companies letters requesting information on the source of their present in the treated water environmental working group report then estimated twenty five percent of bottled water brands that rely on tap water are drawing from supplies that collectively contain two hundred sixty pollutants according to associated press drugs have been found in this poll water samples across the country fishes in philadelphia discovered fifty six pharmaceuticals or byproducts treated drinking water anti epileptic an medications were detected in the treated drinking water for eighteen point five million people in southern california and drinking water here in washington d c and surrounding areas tested positive for pharmaceuticals for these reasons i've introduced h r thirteen fifty nine and responsible grug disposal act of two thousand and nine which which will provide for proper disposal through drug take back programs so individuals are not simply flushing their medications down the toilet into our water systems i'm also proud to be the original co sponsor of the food safety and hansen act of two thousand and nine which passed out of this committee last month and which is getting ready for floor action which provides f d a with much needed doherty to assess the testing records of food and water suppliers i look forward to hearing and i asked for unanimous consent that reports today and the other documents in the binder prepared by staff be entered into the official record those located in the small central oregon community of culver earth in eastern oregon town with artesian blue and in the northern portion of my district in the dows h two oregon the successful businesses are in many cases providing much need job opportunities in areas of oregon that have been hard hit by today's weak economy back mr chairman our unemployment rate is second only to yours in michigan today's hearing raises some valid questions regarding the differences in regulation between the food and drug administration and the e p a regarding bottled water however i should note concern that with all of the life threatening health priorities facing the f d a including numerous food borne illness outbreaks complications with  and swine flu pandemic this issue does to me seem a little secondary terms of the overwhelming workload on other issues we should also put this hearing in context the two reports that are the focus of today's hearing point where the binding but do not assess the safety of the bottled water itself neither the government accountability office g a o nor the environmental working group e w g conducted any testing of the bottled water or the bottles themselves while completing their reports the regulations for bottled water do differ from those promulgated for tap water mostly because bottled water is considered a food product and is therefore regulated by the food and drug administration whereas tap water is regulated by the environmental protection agency however f d a does require that the standards of quality for bottled water must be no less protective of public health than the e p a standard under the f d a regulations boteler is must follow current good manufacturing practices also known as the f d a actually requires more safeguards from water bottle or than other food processors the g m p is for bottled water  commodity specific under these battlers must among other things test their source of water once a week for micro biological contaminants and test finished bottled water with micro biological contaminant now some water bottle is in my district follow a practice of testing their water every hour in order to meet requirements of purchasers of their products so they're doing our water testing i do have a few questions for f d a one discrepancy between e p a and f d a is in the case of a chemical substance called this is a thousand substance added to plastics to change their physical characteristics and i'm sure you're familiar with the f d a has yet to establish a standard for this contaminants in bottled water even though they did over a decade ago an f d a task force is supposedly examining the information surrounding and i want to ask the deputy commissioner when can we expect a ruling from your agency and the question is that all speak to in a minute is about recycled bottles themselves i've had some tell me that the use of recycled bottles perhaps produces more leeching or whatever it is it comes out of the plastic than first time use and i'd be curious to know if that's the case conducting inspections is one way the f d a ensures the boteler is are following concerns have been raised on how frequently the plants are inspected and what access f d a inspectors have the plant records regarding testing and other important information during the inspection i'd be curious to know that the legislation passed unanimously out of the full committee that expands f d a inspection process if that would apply in these cases and therefore you will get new authority at the house and the senate i'd like to hear from the deputy commissioner as well on how the agency can in sprue the inspection process and if you do need any additional authorities congress needs to act we need to know exactly what the agency needs and why currently battlers are not required disclose the source of their water treatment process or the detection of any contaminants question is should i look forward to a response on that chairman i would conclude by thank case i do hope that our request of this committee to have an oversight hearing on what appears to be the bottling up of science and debate on the whole carbon issue will be granted an opportunity for a hearing and a full investigation five certainly the people who were in congress in one thousand sixty five likely could have never foreseen what medicare would become at least as far as the price of that federal program and wouldn't we all be in better shape today perhaps a little more care  hundred sixty five and the object lesson for us today is we need to take good care and exercise due caution as we structure this major fundamental change to american health care  also could have had a hearing on medical devices in this subcommittee which i have asked for for some time and has yet been forthcoming so there are there are ways we could have made use of this time today mr chairman but here we are and we're going to talk about bottled water this morning tap water i don't know if that's changed but i'm a little reluctant to drink what's before us today a pretty broad definition of food would be one that included bottled water and the tremendous breadth and depth of the responsibility entrusted to our good friends of the food and drug administration is this eleven billion dollar industry known as bottled water in america average american consumer is unlikely to think that the f d a would be the primary regulator of bottled water but it is the regulatory responsibility of bottled water  between the environmental protection agency and the federal food and drug cause medical act with the food and drug administration overseeing the process of taking public water in its natural form of the environment into a convenient plastic container for sale to the american consumer and i was much as i appreciate the collegiality the intelligence and the willingness of dr sharpstein to appear here today as a representative of the food and drug administration it does seem to only have the food and drug administration here to answer tough questions and to not have the environmental protection agency to answer questions that would fall into their jurisdiction about the standards for municipal water versus bottled water currently bottled water requires a higher threshold of testing the municipal water water is required to be tested every four years bottled water every year in fact bottled water is currently one of the few standalone industries with its own code of federal regulations regarding good manufacturing processes from the definition of water to the testing and sampling of products for the length of time the records must be kept currently two years and how they should be available to the food and drug administration as well as the role of the environmental protection agency the state and local government agencies in helping to ensure the safety and sanitation and quality of water this burgeoning industry has seemingly existed in a compliance oriented manufacturing system rarely if ever producing bad actors it was seen that this industry is an example of the ingenuity and innovation of the marketplace to create a product which had you'll pardon the pun on clenched and unclenched unquenchable need for a convenient transportable water which at this good idea has been met with the significant market success we must ensure that the trust and faith of consumers as well as the government places bottled water in the places that the government places in the bottled water industry  not misguided more americans drink bottled water than milk or beer combined so if there is any step in this multilayered process to deliver this food product where the trust and faith is misallocated then certainly i look forward to having the science point to a solution furthermore any deficiencies in the regulation of bottled water any potential fraud in the process of producing bottled water and any alleged environmental issues of drainage of our natural resources and the burdensome transportation costs and moving the end product we will certainly look appropriate place to have in addition we've got the whole question of biosimilars out there that will probably just roll into this health care bill and we've not had to talk to us about the science about similar so there's stuff we could be doing is all of the absolutely and this committee has been very active as you know for the last two years and we hold many many hearings and this one with the two report being released today it really tails and everything we've been doing for last couple years in food safety and whether to be a pet that we talked about that greg and i'll take over if you want to go down there and do we have a vote on that right anyway mr chairman but today's hearing does examine several interesting questions surrounding the differences between volatile water and tap water these differences are rise in regulatory approaches or as well as in processing treatment in public perception several of the witness today including the government can mentally office food and drug administration will discuss and possibly debate ways in which bottled water regulations should be changed and profitably improve other witnessed including the environmental working group in the international bottled waters association will discuss ways industry can be more transparent and responsive to consumer inquiries i don't have a problem with transparency in fact i'm pushing transparency in the coming health care debate and as you well know i am certainly pushing transparency at the environmental protection agency where mr walden not have asked to release their documents concerning their suppression of the e p a report within its own agency debating whether there really is an endangerment finding with regards to c o two so those of us on the minority are concerned whether this particular hearing is the best use of our limited oversight hearing times we have confronted the issue of swine flu pandemic we confronted safety of products like tylenol as i said a minute ago mr chairman this one just doesn't seem to be up to that standard of excellence which you have to stablish for your oversight i hope that after this hearing you will consider supporting mr walden and myself on getting  information about the suppression of the document which we call carbon regarding the c o two in the endangered finding we also hope that you will work with us as i talk with you yesterday informally about doing more hearings and doing some action items witnesses you may submit a longer statement for the record and would be included in today's hearing record mr stevenson will start with you thank you mr chairman and mr walden i'm pleased to be here today to discuss the quality and safety of bottled water and its environmental impact over the past decade ever capita consumption a bottled water and united states has more than doubled from thirteen point four gallons per person in one thousand nine hundred seven to twenty nine point three per person in two thousand and seven that's over two hundred bottles a year for every man woman and child and an eleven plus billion dollar market with this increase have come several questions and concerns over bottled water quality and safety my testimony is based on the report or issuing to the committee today which is going to be publicly released in summary found that f d a safety and consumer protections are less stringent for bottled water than comparable e p a protections for tap water by f d a standards for bottled water generally near the standards for the nearly for nearly all of the eighty eight contaminants covered by national primary drinking water regulations there is one notable exception exception d h b which is a plasticizer used to soften plastic which has been linked to reproductive and liver problems and increased cancer risk and it has been regulated by the e p a and tap water since one thousand nine hundred two but f d a deferred action on d e h p n a final rule published in one nine hundred ninety six and has yet to either adopt a standard are published your reason for not doing so even though the statutory deadline for acting was more than fifteen years ago since the h p is used in food packaging as well as bottled water this is a broader issue that f d a is still studying nevertheless our report recommends that f d a expeditiously promulgated d p h standards for bottled water more broadly we found that f d a unlike e p a does not have the statutory authority to require bottle or to use certified laboratories for water quality tests or to report test results even if  standards are found most tests are done by the bottlers themselves several states have requirements to safeguard bottled water that exceed those but are still less comprehensive than for tap water in addition while f d a bottled water labeling requirements are similar to labeling requirements for other foods they provide consumers with far less information about the source and quality of water than what d p a requires of public water systems and the safe drinking water act for example public water systems must annually provide consumer confidence reports that summarize water quality information about the water sources detected contaminants and compliance with national primary drinking water regulations as well as information on the potential health effects of certain contaminants f d a does not require bottled water companies to provide similar information in a study mandated by the one nine hundred ninety six amendments to the safe drinking water after f d a concluded that it was feasible for the bottled water industry to ride the same type of information to consumers that public water systems must provide power the agency was not required to act on its findings and has yet to do so a survey of fifty states in the district of columbia showed to consumers have misconceptions about bottled water believing that it is safer and healthier than tap water we also found that information comparable to what public water systems are required to provide to consumers of tap water was available for only a small percentage of the eighty three bottled water labels we examined companies we contacted our company websites we reviewed we believe that consumers would benefit from better information on the quality and safety of bottled water in our report also recommends that f d a implement the results of a study to accomplish this and examine the environmental effects of bottled water we found that only about twenty five percent of water bottles are recycled and that the remaining seventy five percent are discarded to municipal landfills where they never decompose and essentially remain forever while this over nine hundred thousand tons of plastic annually that represents less than one percent of municipal waste another issue is the amount of energy used to manufacture and transport bottled water another study estimates the energy used by point megajoules per liter at the current rate of consumption this is the equivalent of the energy used by four point seven million households for a year and is one thousand to two thousand times the energy used for tap water we also found the ground water extraction for bottled water facilities in selected areas and that michigan and other states have passed laws to minimize the impact of stream levels and wetlands finally i would note that some of our bottled water findings are indicative of the f d a overall food safety oversight problems that led to designating it a high risk area in january two thousand and seven and again in two thousand and nine when we called for a fundamental reexamination of the federal food safety system we believe that f d a is a lack of authority and resources to effectively regulate bottled water should be part of that reserve nation the department of health and human services want to thank the committee for your work on a wide range of health issues and for the opportunity to discuss at these regulation of bottled water today as has been mentioned bottled water and tap water are regulated by two separate agencies f regulates bottled water while the e p a regulates tap water also referred to as municipal water or public drinking water regulations on the production distribution and quality of public drinking water including source water protection operation and drinking water systems contaminant levels and reporting requirement in cosmetic act f d a with regulatory authority over food and as part of that bottled water is introduced into interstate commerce under the food drug and cosmetic manufacturers are responsible for producing  these regulations include standard of identity regulations that defined different types of bottled water such as bringing water versus mineral water and standard of quality regulations that establish allowable levels for chemical physical microbial and radiological contaminants good manufacturing practice regulations for the processing and bottling of bottled drinking water labeling and g m p regulations for food in general bottled water federal law requires similar standards for bottled water as exists for municipal wat  to make in this regard is that the way that the testing is done is different for example take the lead standard any test that is done on f d a regulated bottled water for the municipal water illustrates that there's a different approach to take in and contact monitors and inspect bottled water products and processing plants as part of the general safety program inspections occur approximately one every one to three years the agency  periodic we collect and analyzes samples of bottled water samples of foreign bottled water offered for n p may be collected and tested to determine if they're in clients with the laws and regulations and lab test the water for microbial radiological or chemical contamination in bottle the bottle or must take appropriate measures to rectify or eliminate the cause of the problem and the father must keep records of such action in general oversight of bottled water i think in me described as the agency's aware of no major outbreaks of illness or serious safety concerns associated with bottled water over the past decade effie's aware the g a o report released today highlights a number of issues that the agency faces in regulating bottled water at work which to provide information and assist with their investigation let me address some of the issues the g a o has raised and let me say that while i do believe that at day's oversight has been generally successful i also believe that there is room for improvement found that f d a has not yet set a standard for the valley and this  standard as anticipated under the law found that f d a labeling regulations were bought water provided for less information about the sources and quality of water than required by the municipal system has found that it would be feasible for survey of labels and websites for one hundred eighty eight bottles here's what we found consumers spend about nine hundred times more for bottled water than for tap water yet they often have no way to learn about what's actually in the reason they enjoy a regulatory holiday under the federal food cosmetic act with near complete latitude on what if any information to share with consumers in contrast every one of the nation's fifty two thousand municipal water suppl check if the purity they're looking for is what they're actually getting so where does the water come from our survey found that thirty percent of bottled water provide no information whatsoever about their water on the label thirty seven percent  value it's called in your figure a smaller brand it's not in the top ten but it is actually distributed by wal mart you'll see on the label the source clearly indicated municipal supply fort worth texas where this water comes from you'll also see the treatment method on the label reverse osmosis let's look at the next figure by way of contrast on the other end of the spectrum on this label you'll see that the product and it's crisp and it has a fresh taste but bottled water companies are not required to disclose what if any methods they use to purify their water municipal water suppliers aren't required to disclose this information either but most of them do we found that forty four percent of bottled waters provide no treatment information on labels one third provide no information on labels or web sites if you look at figure two in your packet you'll see a label for actually doing the right thing you'll see on this label the water comes from the houston municipal water supply but it doesn't stop there it's further treated by reverse osmosis carbon filtration micro filtration and contra let me read to you what you'll see on a label the purest water comes from the purest cloud our rainfall is don't label their treatment methods consumers have no way to know if the claims are true pollutants are in bottled water every top water utility publishes an annual water quality report listing all their results for the year but only eighteen percent of bottled water do maintain prevent controls which all members already do as a condition of membership and granting f d a authority to mandate recall under circumstances where food products present an imminent threat of serious adverse health consequences or  death consumers right to clear accurate and comprehensive information about the bottled water products as i mentioned all packaged food and beverages including bottled water are subject to extensive f d a labeling requirements that provide consumers with a great deal of product quality information in addition virtually all bottled water products include a phone number on the label that consumers can use to contact the company in fact in two thousand and one to require all bottled water labels to include a phone that is not the case with tap water consumers cannot choose which public water system is piped into their homes and that is the fundamental consumer choice unfortunately many people want to make this out to be a bottled water versus tap water issue  people are drinking water bottles that's a good thing and consumers should be free to choose in fact seventy five percent of consumers who drink bottled water also choose to drink tap water supports investments to improve the u s public drinking water system we put our priority of people are saying you drink the water and cancer and people may not pursue cancer like mr ricker who poland springs who had a miraculous record cover eleven or fifty two years and good for a liver and kidney  that strikes me as pretty worth our evaluating i'm not familiar with that but i think that would definitely fall into something we would want to look closely at how about the other one the makers of h two o h two o claim that they play music in sounds after bottling facility that charge the water with special vibratory frequencies what would that be miss advertising i'm not a musician but i would still on the board there and in the two reports by g a o and the environmental working group talk about the regulations and you mentioned a little bit in yours to discover dangerous contaminants of water they don't have to learn the public really also under the jurisdiction of the f t c the federal trade commission on false advertising and labeling i have to get back to you i'm not i don't know if i can say that i think we do have a certain section there and i'm not sure about  say i want to know the ingredients i wanted i mean what i take water out of my place here and there's no label on the tap that tells me all this stuff i wouldn't know where to go in the d c system to even find out and frankly as long as it's safe i don't whatever they asked for in our opinion that's what they should provide and that's our bottom line is that if a consumer has a question we believe the right to have that information the real issue is how to best provide that information i think that's  consumer confidence reports to disclose any contamination problems the likely source of that contamination potential health effects of that contamination and information about the system success the ability to contamination striking disparity in the information available to consumers learn about dangerous contaminants and i tap water it's a broad public announcement within twenty four hours but we may never learn about the dangerous contaminants in bottled water did you say that you supported a requirement that the bottled water companies disclose test results showing contamination above the water level actually starting in september we think that requirement will take effect for contamination opposes arrest labs i think f d a would like to have authority to require labs if we think about it important for a particular product and i think that because of the broad preventive authority that the  new legislation that's been moving through the house would give we would be able to do that the second question of acquiring lab report to f d a is a little bit more complex because there are so many tests that are done just the positive is right  understand the concern that's expressed there is whether or not it inhibits the private sector from testing at all if they have a good testing program in place where they're identifying and keeping things out of the system you know should they be reporting every single positive which one should get reported those are questions that i think it's a little bit more complex because you could be drowning and if you think not just for water but all the different foods all the  different we don't want to inhibit companies in doing their own testing if they have good preventive plans in place and we want to not be missing the forest for the trees in terms of all the information coming with that question of how much to acquire where to get it from is sort of  more complex issue that we would probably look out of and you know in a particular industry or particular situation like you know certain types of tests and probably would want to know because they would be very good and earlier this  anyone didn't have access to those results and couldn't access them until people felt invoking another lot of bioterrorism law and so the same legal loophole applies a bottled water to the best of anyone's knowledge there is no difference in the way these compounds would reach out of the plastic into a liquid whether it be water or coloring is that correct i don't know if i could if i know enough to answer that question i do think that you know i think the point is there is you know from a food safety perspective you know that there's not in the food safety perspective water has a whole additional the report to people to inspect the eleven billion dollars water industry four years ago the f d a changed the risk assessment of bottled water from low risk to high risk so the question then becomes how many spectra should be required to or not enough what is our what is our limit we'll be doing the agriculture appropriations bill this afternoon which will have the funding for the food and drug administration  responsibility we have said designating food safety a high risk area over the past two years that the resources are inadequate to do the job right now and we have pointed out broader standpoint that food safety is spread over a number of environment rep right by the flood water and this isn't a volume problem as we noted it's less than one percent of what's going into a landfill nevertheless they never decompose and they stay there forever and recycling is a good thing in general and i would agree with  d other things like that sort of surround it with and let me ask you a question of time i don't have remaining and it's not fair to ask you this but i'll do it anyway we're going to vote on the culture appropriations bill today or tomorrow the number we have in the bill for the food and drug administration do we have the right number there that the president's budget and what came out of committee is a historic increase and i think there's no question the administration responded very strongly to beautiful campus that they occupy is actually part of the g s a budget so none of your food safety dollars are going to build that lovely campus which we're we're all so proud of all your back that's going around  you do some testing several hundred samples in the last couple years we can find out a problem we could have somebody calls and say there's a problem with the company and so that leads us to investigate then once we find a problem i think it's important to really follow up year that makes sense require them to do well twenty five percent i think is the missile and i think was in your report twenty five percent of the bottlers use tap water why don't we just require them to post your web site i think it would i think it could totally understand why that would make sense why consumers might be interested in that if the point of comparison is municipal water standard that we have for putting something on the label is that it would have to be misleading without it and so we we can't you know we use that to say that something's gotta be there or it's misleading without it and that's a hard thing to put that kind of file that in that category so that's not to say we wouldn't you know we wouldn't support it but whether we could do it of purified water with minerals added back and if they added other things into the water would they have to disclose that i believe they would if it is a question of the standard of identity for bottled water which right then add something else to the water then for labeling purposes you would probably and this is where i'm a little sure to make sure we can get back to you on this specifically but i think in that case that would say you need bottled water it's about this new dish and about what's in the plastic and this is where it gets a little bit confusing but basically nine hundred ninety one mid ninety's when this plastic and therefore the provision of the law that we're talking about conflicted with another provision of the law what is our understanding it's changed since that time and we don't believe that it's being used in water bottles or water right now the issue here is the quality of the water in the source of the water going into what we consume then it seems to me where we're kind of myopic you're just looking at bottled water because somebody doesn't like bottled water presumes that it has a higher sort of threshold in our minds about purity i would suggest that a lot of us drink orange juice thinking that's better than perhaps bottled water because you get other no fancy other things with it  and yet i'm thinking eighty percent ninety percent of what i'm getting in the carton of orange juice unless it's fresh only not from concentrate is probably water and so from the standpoint you look at the water i mean there it's your point of comparison yeah but i guess the question where is that disclosure i mean i've never even at least there some on this label know where to go i mean in my hometown hood river we have it out of a spring but i don't get a notice  territory doesn't have any jurisdiction or do you work with and the territory that actually is a pretty broad statement because if the bottle comes from outside the state or the cap comes from outside the to make the statement that it doesn't apply to bottled water at all but it's not obvious that there is such a compelling reason at this point that we would anticipate going forward and setting a standard at that point it's as long as it takes to do make that available to the committee for its consideration of adding it to the record and then finally the question mr weldon also asked in his opening statement rhetorical question about recycling and really for anyone of the panel about plastic compounds leeching out of the plastic in greater amounts in recycled materials that in native or or first run materials is that a real concern for us to have are there going to be different standards for the recycled bottles