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AGENCY BUDGETS AND PRIORITIES

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007

(109–54)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

TRANSPORTATION AND

INFRASTRUCTURE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 8, 2006

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice-Chair

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

GARY G. MILLER, California

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

TED POE, Texas

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

CONNIE MACK, Florida

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JERROLD NADLER, New York

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

BOB FILNER, California

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

(II)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, Chairman

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

GARY G. MILLER, California

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

TED POE, Texas

CONNIE MACK, Florida

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana,

Vice-Chair

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

DON YOUNG, Alaska

(Ex Officio)

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

(Ex Officio)

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS

TESTIMONY

Page

Baxter, Bill, Chairman, Tennessee Valley Authority ........................................... 15

Bodine, Susan Parker, Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and

Emergency Response, U.S. Environmrntal Protection Agency ........................ 12

Dunnigan, John H., Assistant Asministrator, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce ..................................................................................................................... 15

Grumbles, Benjamin H., Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .................................................................................... 12

PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri ......................................................................... 55

Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois .......................................................................... 56

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

Baxter, Bill ............................................................................................................... 37

Bodine, Susan Parker .............................................................................................. 43

Dunnigan, John H ................................................................................................... 59

Grumbles, Benjamin H. ........................................................................................... 69

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Bodine, Susan Parker, Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and

Emergency Response, U.S. Environmrntal Protection Agency, responses to

questions from Rep. Kelly ................................................................................... 51

Grumbles, Benjamin H., Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, responses to questions from Rep. Johnson of

Texas ..................................................................................................................... 77

(1)

AGENCY BUDGETS AND PRIORITIES FOR

FISCAL YEAR 2007

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, WASHINGTON,

D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m. in room

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John H. Duncan, Jr.

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.

Mr. DUNCAN. We are going to go ahead and start a little bit early

here. Other members will be joining us.

I first would like to welcome everyone to the second of our fiscal

year 2007 budget hearings. Last week, we heard from the Army

Corps of Engineers, the Natural Resources Conservation Service,

and the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. Today’s

hearing will examine the budgets and priorities of the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority for fiscal year

2007.

I certainly support the President’s efforts to control Federal

spending and I understand that some tough choices need to be

made. But I have to take issue with some of the choices on where

to cut the spending. It is inevitable that the Administration’s priorities and congressional priorities will not always coincide. However,

for the EPA and NOAA programs that fall within the jurisdiction

of this Subcommittee, I would like to think that we have the same

goal of protecting our environment in a cost effective way.

With that goal in mind, I continue to be disappointed that the

Clean Water Act State Revolving Loan Program, the SRF Program,

is perennially the target of proposed budget cuts. The SRF Program is one of the most cost effective programs in the government.

For every dollar the Federal Government invests, more than $2 are

made available for environmental improvements. That is not a pie

in the sky figure. In fact, the Federal investment of $23 billion in the SRFs has led

to the creation of over $55 billion of revolving loan funds available

for clean water projects. In fiscal year 2005 alone, the SRF Program provided over $4.9 billion in loans for sewer upgrades and

other water quality improvements around the Nation, and certainly

we need a lot of work in that regard.

It does sound like a lot of money, but the needs are far greater.

We are all well aware that our national water infrastructure is

aging, deteriorating and in need of repair and replacement. Studies
2

by the EPA, the Congressional Budget Office and the Water Infrastructure Network have confirmed that the gap between current

levels of spending and the necessary level of investment in wastewater infrastructure is staggering and we need to double our efforts at least to close that gap.

We are spending several hundred billions each year in other

countries doing all sorts of things, and as I have mentioned here

before, we have been spending more on the water system in Iraq

at the Federal level than we have in recent years from the Federal

level here in this Country. Of course, we are spending more total

when you add in the rate payers and the State and local expenditures.

By continuing to cut funding of the Clean Water SRF Program

as the Administration has proposed, SRFs will be unable to help

local communities fund thousands of essential clean water projects

all around the Nation. The consequences of failing to invest are severe. Without upgrades to wastewater infrastructure, not only will

we fail to make progress in water quality, but as our population

increases we will lose the gains we have made over the past 30

years.

There has to be a shared commitment to make the needed improvements to our water infrastructure and there certainly is an

important national role here, but we need local, State and Federal

investment in this area to continue to increase, not decrease, as our

population grows and the needs and the infrastructure age and the

needs become even greater.

And there is an important national role because millions of people come to and through Tennessee each year, and millions of Tennesseans go each year to other States. Most people go to several

States in any one year, and they use our water systems throughout

the Country. So there certainly is a legitimate national role in this

area.

The EPA also needs to direct adequate funding towards its other

core clean water programs. As for the Superfund Program, the

overall budget request of $1.26 billion is $17 million more than the

currently enacted level. However, that increase is not being directed towards on the ground cleanup activities. Proposed funding

for actual removal and remedial actions is less than the currently

enacted funding level and even the Administration’s fiscal year

2006 requested amount. The EPA needs to reallocate more funding

away from overhead and administrative costs and towards cleanup.

In 2004, the EPA’s Inspector General identified a shortfall of

$175 million in funding for cleaning up Superfund sites. That

shortfall has not been addressed. Instead, the President’s budget

appears to be deferring to the overall levels Congress has enacted

recently.

For NOAA, I am interested in hearing about NOAA’s role in carrying out the President’s Ocean Action plan, particularly the National Water Quality Monitoring Network. This Subcommittee has

consistently encouraged better coordination of water monitoring

data and would like to hear about what NOAA is doing to maximize coordination with other agencies.

Finally, I want to comment on TVA’s budget for fiscal year 2007.

Unlike the other agencies before us today, TVA is self-financed,
3

drawing its revenues from eight million ratepayers in the seven

States that it supplies with electricity. I appreciate all the benefits

that TVA brings to the people of my District and our region. I want

to see a strong and financially sound TVA that will continue to

benefit the Tennessee Valley long into the future.

In past hearings, I have expressed concerns about TVA’s long

term financial health. Other Members have raised similar concerns. Since then, the Committee has met with the TVA, its customers and people in the financial and utility industries. I am

pleased that TVA is now doing more to manage its financial obligations.

The TVA’s strategic plan adopted in 2004 seeks to reduce the

Authority’s debt. This is something that I expressed concern about

when I first came to Congress. This is my 18th year. Many years

ago, the TVA’s total debt was approaching almost $30 billion and

was moving up rapidly. At one point, they were spending 34 cents

of every dollar just to service that debt. I am very pleased that

under the leadership of Chairman Baxter that real progress seems

to be being made towards this debt reduction and that debt reduction is a high priority in the TVA’s budgeting to reduce its total financial obligations.

I remember writing to the Federal Financing Bank to ask if they

would allow TVA to refinance some of its debt, and that certainly

has helped, but there have been many, many actions taken under

the leadership of Chairman Baxter and I will say that I certainly

admire and appreciate and respect the work that he has done. We

are pleased to have him here today.

I should say I am pleased to have all the witnesses here. Mr.

Grumbles has been with us many times before, and Mr. Dunnigan

also, but we have the former Staff Director, Susan Bodine, here. I

know that she misses us terribly.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. At any rate, we are certainly honored to have her

back with us as well.

And now I would like to turn to my good friend, the Ranking

Member, Ms. Johnson, for any comments she wishes to make.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding

this second hearing on the fiscal year 2007 budget and its impact

on programs within the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee.

The President’s budget highlights the disconnect between the priorities of the American people and protecting the Nation’s economic

and environmental health, and those of this Administration. The

President’s budget request for the Environmental Protection Agency is the lowest ever requested by this Administration, representing close to $400 million or a 5 percent reduction from last year’s

appropriated level.

This budget request also represents the lowest funding level requested by this Administration for EPA’s Superfund Program,

EPA’s Brownfields Assessment and Cleanup Program, and EPA’s

water and wastewater infrastructure grant programs, programs

that are essential for safeguarding human health and protecting

the environment.

As I stated at our last meeting, this budget is simply not adequate to meet the Nation’s needs. First, the budget takes a penny
4

wise, pound foolish approach to the economy, making imprudent

short term cuts to programs that have proven essential for long

term economic health. Most notable is the 22 percent reduction to

the primary Federal program for investing in wastewater infrastructure, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

Mr. Chairman, the Congressional Budget Office, outside groups

and even EPA itself have each documented annual needs of over

$10 billion above current expenditures to meet future wastewater

infrastructure needs. Yet this budget would eliminate almost $200

million in Federal grants to States for revolving loan funds, as well

as an additional $200 million in Federal funding for high priority

water and wastewater projects.

These reductions are simply unacceptable. States and local communities have warned that reduced funding for wastewater infrastructure programs will make it more difficult to respond to failing

wastewater infrastructure and would likely force the delay of essential upgrades to meet requirements of the Clean Water Act and

to improve water quality. In fact, we all know of examples where

local communities have been unable to fund necessary projects due

to the lack of available funds.

In addition, EPA has warned that without increased investment

in our Nation’s wastewater infrastructure, we will likely reverse

the gains made in improving water quality over the past 20 years.

According to the agency, in less than a generation, we could see a

return to the days when rivers were little more than open sewers.

Mr. Chairman, the Superfund Program fares no better in this

budget. Since this Administration came into office, the President’s

budget has almost halved the annual number of Superfund cleanups achieved by the previous Administration. In just six years,

EPA has slowed the pace of cleanup from the average of 173 sites

per year, to just over 40, leaving our neighborhoods at risk while

they await available cleanup funding.

Unfortunately, the current budget request will do little to accelerate the cleanup of these remaining toxic sites. In fact, it will do

the opposite because when faced with insufficient funding to address contaminated sites, EPA will be forced to further slow cleanups at current sites and may be forced to limit the number of future sites that may enter the cleanup program.

We will see a second slowdown of Superfund cleanups, perhaps

as early as next year, as agency officials have indicated the need

to internally shift funds from site investigations and selection of

appropriate remedies, toward construction. While I am all for

cleanups by shifting funds from the investigations end of the pipeline towards construction, the only result will be further delay in

the future cleanups as sites more slowly through the entire cleanup

process.

The budget also reinforces the troublesome finding of a 2004

EPA report that highlighted how limited funding for the Superfund

Program has hampered its ability to clean up toxic waste sites.

This report estimated that in fiscal year 2003 alone, the site specific shortfall for the Superfund was $174 million, forcing ongoing

cleanups to be delayed, segmented into pieces or scaled back, solely

as a result of budgetary shortfalls.
5

EPA responded that a major cause for this shortfall was that the

remaining sites were more complex and more costly. However, most

of these sites have been in the Superfund pipeline for decades, so

it comes as no surprise that additional cleanup dollars were going

to be necessary, and the longer we wait the more will be needed.

Yet, for the last six years, EPA’s Superfund budget has been declining, failing even to keep up with the pace of inflation. Fewer

resources for more expensive sites can only lead to slowdowns. If

the President’s request is enacted, this would be the lowest amount

available for cleanup in terms of real spending power at any time

since the late 1980s, again forcing local communities to live with

toxic waste sites.

This budget also proposes that all Federal spending for the

Superfund Program will be from general taxpayers and continues

the alarming trend of collecting fewer and fewer cost recoveries

from responsible parties. This is not how the Superfund Program

was intended to be when it was enacted. Gone are the days when

the Superfund was a polluter pays program.

I am also concerned at the failure to adequately fund other important programs within the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee. In

particular, I am concerned that the budget proposes to cut EPA’s

Section 319 Program despite recognition that point sources of pollution are the single largest source of impairment of the Nation’s rivers, lakes and near coastal waters.

At the same time, the budget proposes to eliminate the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program, a program that has demonstrated great potential in improving coastal water quality and reducing the likelihood of unsafe beach conditions and closures.

The budget requests the lowest level of funding ever for the

Brownfields site assessment and cleanup programs, while asserting

that the budget fully funds Brownfield cleanups. When the President signed the Brownfield legislation in January of 2002, he said

that the bill was good public policy, that it was wise, and encourages growth, and fosters the environment. Under this budget, those

attributes seem no longer to be important to the Administration.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot under-invest in our Nation’s infrastructure or its environment. We have an obligation to future generations to provide a cleaner, safer and more secure world for them

to live.

I thank you for having this testimony. I look forward to hearing

out witnesses.

I yield.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Does anyone wish to make a statement? Mr. Fortuno, do you

have a statement? Mr. Gilchrest?

Mr. GILCHREST. I just wanted to say hi to former staff, and hope

their lives are going well, and they are being treated equitably. If

you could focus all of your attention on the Chesapeake Bay issues,

we would appreciate it.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Pascrell?

Mr. PASCRELL. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and

Ranking Member Johnson for this opportunity, and welcome As-
6

sistant Administrator Bodine and Mr. Grumbles, who have been

before us before, and Mr. Dunnigan and Mr. Baxter.

I want to start of by two questions, asking rhetorical questions,

of course, because I have a Homeland Security meeting I have to

go to. I would ask this of Mr. Grumbles very quickly. You do not

need to be a former Mayor to know that municipalities need resources to do what we say they must do, build the infrastructure.

Whatever happened to Federal mandate, Federal pay?

My second question to Administrator Bodine is, in 1995 taxpayers paid just 18 percent of the total Superfund Program. In

2004, taxpayers paid 80 percent. Under the Clinton Administration, we averaged 87 cleanups per year. Under this Administration,

we average 40 a year, and there are 113 Superfund sites in the

State of New Jersey. What do you intend to do about it?

So if it feels like we have all been to this same hearing with the

same budget problems each of the last six years, it is because we

have. I am hopeful that the laudable addition of newly installed Assistant Administrator Bodine will help the situation across town at

the EPA, but with this Administration, I am not holding my

breath.

Let’s get real here. The Administration budget offers a mere

$687 million for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. That is

half of what the Congress had been appropriating up until 2004.

New Jersey municipalities at least know who to blame when the

long line to access the limited funds will keep getting longer and

property taxes get higher and higher.

The Federal Government has rightly mandated tough clean

water standards, but municipalities need the resources to build infrastructure to meet those standards. The Administration budget

misses another chance to prove its commitment to our Nation’s

clean water.

It is not on the front pages. You don’t see it on any of the talk

shows. Nobody cares about it. It is a fact of reality. If it wasn’t for

this Chairman and this Committee on both sides of the aisle, it

wouldn’t even be discussed even here in the Transportation Committee. It wouldn’t even be a second thought. So it wouldn’t be on

page 38; it would just not be there, period. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Cities want to be in compliance with EPA, and keep local rivers

clean by doing what is right for the environment and for the future

generations. But when you mix large capital investments with severe budgetary constraints, many cities are simply unable to do

what they need to do to meet Federal regulations.

What the Administration should do is take a page from this

Committee, which thanks the leadership which is at the forefront

of wastewater infrastructure issues. For five years, this Committee

has attempted to not only authorize, but to put real money there

so we can use it. We do not have a system of checks and balances

in this government. We have thrown fair government to the wind.

We do not have equal branches of government. And this is a perfect

example and a mirror up to what this Administration is all about.

The Committee reported to reauthorize as reported out $1.5 billion for wet weather grant programs. This legislation can actually

give cities and towns the resources they desperately need to clean
7

up non-complying combined sewer systems, and there is enough to

go around in this Country, as you well know.

They will need all the help they can get as in the budget blueprint the EPA Brownfields Program is slated to receive only half

of its authorized level. No question about it, two years, they will

zero it out. I don’t know what else they intend to zero out.

I have serious concerns about the budget. I wish the panel lots

of luck in defending the Administration request. I know that is why

you are here. But you know what? You are not just messengers.

You are smart. You are intelligent human beings. I don’t say that

in a compromising way at all or a patronizing way. You can’t simply be the messenger when you know darn well that this Administration is not doing what should be done. If we mandate it, we have

to help those municipalities out there.

You do not have to talk to the municipalities. You are down here.

We represent those municipalities back in our Districts. You want

to come up and hit every District where we have this problem? You

know you are not going to be able to do that. So you have to fight

for what we think should be in there, or go back and just deliver

the message. I think that compromises your intelligence. I ask you,

I beg of you, let’s make this year different from all the last five.

Should I be hopeful? I ask rhetorically, should I be hopeful.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Pascrell.

Dr. Ehlers?

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your having

this hearing. It is good to see our friends back, Mr. Grumbles, Ms.

Bodine. I can say that I knew you before you were honorable.

[Laughter.]

Mr. EHLERS. It is a real pleasure to see you back. You were both

outstanding members of the Committee. We hated to lose you, but

we still have part of you through this process and your new assignments.

A few comments. I associate myself with a number of the comments of Mr. Gilchrest, except his comment about Chesapeake Bay.

Obviously, the Great Lakes have much more water and have much

greater need, and I hope that all of you will keep that in mind.

Mr. GILCHREST. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. EHLERS. No.

[Laughter.]

Mr. EHLERS. Sorry about that, Wayne.

I very much appreciate the Administration’s request of $49.6 million for the Legacy Act. That has been a real boost to keeping the

Great Lakes clean and cleaning up the sediment in the rivers. I am

sorry that Congress has not matched the President’s request. We

will continue to work on that to make sure that it does.

Also as you know, the entire Great Lakes Program went through

a major national collaborative project last year and came to good

conclusions which they announced on December 12. It is clear that

there is not enough funding in this present funding climate to really launch the program the way it should be launched, but I am

working on legislation to get a start on that.

I hope that will be ready within the matter of a couple of weeks,

and I will then be discussing it with you, Mr. Chairman, and with
8

the staff because this is a crucial issue. As I said, it is going to take

time, but it time for the Everglades. It took time for the Chesapeake Bay. But it is the sort of thing that you have to begin addressing and do as much as you can as soon as you can.

The other factor I mentioned, it really strikes me that water is

an incredible friend, but also an incredible enemy at time. I think

the focus of this Committee has to be to continue to try to make

sure that water remains a friend, and by that I mean that it is accessible, it is pure, and that we will have a sufficient supply for

every part of our Nation.

Also, we have to make sure that we contain the enemy in the

water, whether it is hurricanes, floods, and any other activity that

creates major problems for our people. I think that has to be the

emphasis of all that we do here, whether it is done through our legislation, through the Corps, through helping others, but we always

have to keep in mind our effort should be concentrated toward

helping the friendly aspects of water and mitigating the unfriendly

aspects of water.

With just one last comment, when I talked a minute ago about

the friendlier parts, I mentioned the purity of water. I find it ironic

in this Country where, as Mr. Pascrell has said, we don’t seem to

have enough money at either the local or the Federal or the State

level, to deal with some of the problems of water. And yet we are

spending billions of dollars every year on bottled water in this Nation.

I never, when I grew up, I never would have believed that this

would ever happen. We knew it was that way in Europe. It was

that way in parts of Asia, most of Asia. And we never, we have always been proud of the pure water in this Country. Today, even

in the Congress of the United States, we are given bottled water

because the city water does not meet the quality standards that we

should have. So I think that is something that we all have to address.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers. Certainly, one of several

bills that were passed by this Committee in recent years was your

Great Lakes Legacy Act, and that was very important legislation.

No one has done more for the Great Lakes than you, and not

enough people in this Country realize the importance of the Great

Lakes to this entire Nation and what a tremendous asset it is.

I told somebody recently I think that probably one of the things

that my grandfather would have been the most amazed at is how

much people are paying for and spending on bottled water in this

Country today. You are right on that, too.

Mr. Bishop?

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you and

Ranking Member Johnson for holding this hearing.

Let me say at the outset that I am very concerned by the budget

proposals that we are now considering. These proposals sacrifice

the long term health of our environment and the protection of our

coastal communities for short term and insignificant reductions in

the deficit.

I am troubled by the Administration’s continuing retreat from

the protection of our environmental resources under the pretense
9

of expanding economic growth. As someone who represents over

300 miles of coastline and numerous communities that depend on

tourism and an immaculate local environment for their economic

well being, I fail to see the correlation between weakening environmental protections and decimating our shoreline and growing the

economy.

This budget contains deep and disturbing cuts to efforts to protect our environment. Despite the urgent environmental needs of

our air, water and land at risk, the EPA suffers some of the most

drastic cuts proposed by the Administration. Many of these proposed cuts will directly affect my constituents on Long Island. The

Administration’s budget specifically targets the Long Island Sound

Restoration Funding by drastically slashing this worthwhile program.

In addition, it is perplexing that the President reauthorized this

program in December with an authorization of $40 million, and yet

the budget now sees fit to propose funding cuts for the Long Island

Sound Study yet again.

The budget also proposes funding cuts for the National Estuary

Program, a proven Federal initiative. My District is home to two

estuaries that rely on this funding to maintain their pristine environmental qualities.

I look forward to discussing these issues further as we hear the

testimony from our panelists.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. And also we passed two

bills that you helped usher through, the National Estuary Program

and particularly the Long Island Sound legislation. We appreciate

that very much.

Ms. Norton, I believe, is next.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I welcome today’s witnesses. I am not sure I welcome the budget

they have come to talk about.

I want to begin by saying I was not here to hear what Wayne

Gilchrest said about the Chesapeake Bay, but I just want to go on

record as seconding whatever he said about the Chesapeake Bay.

Mr. DUNCAN. He said we should spend the entire budget on the

Chesapeake Bay.

[Laughter.]

Ms. NORTON. Could I strike that?

But Wayne understands that water does not stop at the border.

The Chesapeake Bay, of course, is one of the great wonders of the

United States, truly. I am concerned that among the waters that

flow into ultimately the Chesapeake Bay are filthy Anacostia River

waters from which storm water overflow from the capital of the

United States, downtown Washington and the entire Federal presence flows.

So thank you very much for your sewage, colleagues, but this is

something that we simply have to get done since most of this storm

water overflow comes from the fact that the system was built by

the Corps of Engineers at a time when you mixed or allowed in

rainstorm the mixture of sewage with more sanitary water, and

thus it flows into the streets, it flows wherever it can find, but
10

much of it comes from here. About one-third of it comes from the

Federal presence.

It is urgently needed. This Committee has been helpful. I noted

that, I see Mr. Grumbles is here. He and I have gotten to know

one another. I note that the Chesapeake Bay got into your testimony, and I am pleased to see that, but Mr. Grumbles’ presence

reminds me of the huge lead in water scare we had here in all of

all places the Nation’s Capital just three or four years ago.

When Dr. Ehlers talked about bottled water, we know exactly

what you are talking about because when people who drank the

water who were pregnant, when children who drank the water

learn of the possibility and indeed the fact that lead pipes had

seeped into the water, you know that you are in trouble, and that

what was being used here in the District to clear such impurities

was not state of the art.

As a result of that, along with a number of other Members, I

filed a bill, refiled it this year, to truly update the Clean Water Act.

We are living off of an old Act. Our own water treatment facility

here has made some changes. For that matter, EPA has made some

changes. The EPA was nothing short of embarrassed to have the

capital of the United States in the national and international press

with a lead water problem. For us, it was more than embarrassment. It was a true and terrible scare. We believe we have come

some distance, but it has nothing to do with anything in this budget.

I think the only thing that will matter is a much closer look at

the Clean Water Act. The water fountains that your children use

at school are undoubtedly like the water fountains we found in

Maryland and in the District of Columbia. They have old pipes. Nobody looks to see whether those pipes are leeching lead. And those

are children, those are the vulnerable people.

Those of us who are sitting on this end of the roster have brains

so thick and in place that lead would probably not penetrate at this

point. But if you are a child, a young person with a supple brain

and those brains are supple for a good number of years of their

lives, certainly for the first dozen years or so, you simply do not

need to be exposed to lead in the water when you go to school.

What has happened of course to the confidence in the government’s ability to provide this very basic necessity is that we have

spawned an industry that sells water. We don’t know what in the

world that water is about. We don’t know what its purity is. We

assume.

Isn’t this pathetic? We assume that it must be better than the

water that comes through our spigots. There is something very

wrong with that. It is a loss of confidence in the ability of the government to in fact do one of the most basic things you do in even

a society that does not claim to be advanced.

Mr. Chairman, I am certain, given the success of the water industry, the loss of confidence in the people of the United States,

that their governments can provide clean water. I am certain that

somebody soon is going to be bottling clean air. Watch for it, my

friends.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
11

Mrs. Kelly is next, but if you don’t mind, Congressman Ehlers

wants 30 seconds of your time. He wanted to make one more comment before you started.

Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Chairman, I have no opening statement. I am

anxious to go to the question and answer portion of this.

Mr. DUNCAN. Okay.

Mrs. KELLY. So you may use my time however you would like.

Mr. DUNCAN. Okay, sure. We will go to Vern, Congressman

Ehlers.

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. I will try to keep it short

anyway.

I got so carried away in my diatribe about bottled water, I neglected to mention something very important about NOAA. It is a

plea to my colleagues to help me in an effort to maintain the integrity of their budget and their appropriations this year. For some

reason, the NOAA budget has become a target for larceny in the

past several years in the appropriations process, probably because

they feel that, those who take the money for other purposes may

feel that there is not enough support for NOAA’s programs.

I would just encourage all of us to work diligently to make sure

that the appropriations intended for NOAA in fact end up in NOAA

research and operations, and that we do not have so much diverted

to other causes and other purposes in the next few years.

Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Baird?

Mr. BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just very briefly, I want to thank the panelists, and enjoyed

meeting with Mr. Dunnigan the other day. We discussed at the

time the importance of research that is often neglected on harmful

algae blames, which Mr. Ehlers and I have worked on very much

before. I want to reiterate the importance of that, particularly for

our shellfish industry and for public safety. And also my longstanding interest, again with Dr. Ehlers, on the issue of invasive species.

So we wish to work with you on that.

Also, of course, the important permitting issues that many of

your agencies are involved with, to the extent that we can work collaboratively to expedite those processes while still protecting the

environment, we can I think do things more efficiently and economically.

I yield back. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

We have a very distinguished panel today. The Honorable Benjamin H. Grumbles is Assistant Administrator for Water at the

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is from here in Washington. The Honorable Susan Parker Bodine is Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response of the EPA,

also from here. We have Mr. John H. Dunnigan who is the Assistant Administrator of the National Ocean Service of the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also from Washington.

And then we have one of my 700,000 bosses, Mr. Bill Baxter, a long

time friend of mine, who is Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
12

Mr. Baxter, it is an honor to have you here. You are fortunate,

when Chairman Boehlert, the six years he chaired this Subcommittee, and he was from upstate New York, almost every year he

would use this hearing to complain about what he thought was an

unfair advantage TVA gave people from our region. Of course, I

didn’t think it was an unfair advantage at all. At any rate, we are

glad to have you here.

Your full statements will be placed in the record. We are supposed to limit you to five minutes. I always give the witnesses six

minutes, but as a courtesy to the other witnesses, if you see me

start to wave this, that means your six minutes is up and so I want

you to try to bring it to a close.

To be honest with you, I think of all the times that Ben Grumbles has been here, I don’t think he has ever taken the full five

minutes even.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. So I don’t know. We will see what happens today.

Mr. Grumbles?

TESTIMONY OF BENJAMIN H. GRUMBLES, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR WATER, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

AGENCY; SUSAN PARKER BODINE, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF SOLID WASTE AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; JOHN

H. DUNNIGAN, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL

OCEAN SERVICE, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC

ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE; BILL

BAXTER, CHAIRMAN, TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY

Mr. GRUMBLES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is truly an honor

to appear before the Committee. I just look at the membership of

the Committee and see the leaders on environmental issues, particularly in great waters, sensitive ecosystems like the Great

Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay, the Anacostia, but also the whole effort. So it is an honor to be back.

It is even more of an honor to be able to appear with Susan. That

is just a tremendous opportunity for EPA to have her working at

EPA with us.

It is an honor to be here to discuss the President’s fiscal year

2007 budget request for EPA, and specifically for the National

Water Program. The President charged the Administrator with the

job of accelerating environmental protection, while maintaining our

Country’s economic competitiveness. We believe the 2007 budget

request provides the tools and the resources to do so. In the

amount of time I have in the opening statement, I want to emphasize two words, and the two words are sustainability and stewardship.

Sustainability of infrastructure is a key theme and a focus of the

agency. I know and we are taking note and we understand the

views of those who criticize the investments in the President’s

budget in the State revolving fund. We feel that the $688 million

request is on track with the commitment to provide a self-sustaining, fully revolving level of $3.4 billion after 2011, and that that

seed money, those investments in the State revolving fund must be
13

coupled with an aggressive approach to implement four pillars of

sustainability.

Those four pillars are improved management, looking at it from

a demand side, working cooperatively with utilities and cities

across the Country to use asset management, capacity development, environmental management systems, technologies, to reduce

the costs, reduce the demand on infrastructure and improve the

management.

The other pillars of sustainability that we are committed to and

want to work with you on include full cost pricing and also water

efficiency, and then the last pillar being watershed-based approaches. We think that is where we can make the progress.

Through all of those pillars, the key tools are technology and innovation and collaboration. So we agree. We recognize that one of

the greatest challenges is making progress, maintaining economic

competitiveness, but making progress on the water infrastructure

challenge.

We want to work with Members of Congress, with citizens, with

the private sector, to find innovative financing tools to supplement

the four pillars of sustainability.

Mr. Chairman, on the issue of watersheds and core clean water

programs, the President’s budget includes $192 million for EPA’s

core clean water regulatory program. This provides the tools and

the science for setting water quality standards, for monitoring, for

progress and coordination with our partners on the clean water

challenge.

Also included is $194 million for nonpoint source pollution, which

we recognize is one of the greatest challenges. We believe that

EPA’s budget, in coordination with USDA farm bill programs and

other programs, can continue to make significant progress. We will

make more progress if we focus on innovative tools such as water

quality trading, to have more cost effective in environmentally results-oriented approaches.

The budget request also includes $222 million in grants to States

and tribes, our partners in carrying out the Clean Water Act, to

help them administer their important responsibilities. For wetlands

program, we are requesting a total of $38 million. That includes

$17 million for State Capacity Development Grants. We think it is

important for States to have the tools to protect these precious resources.

On the Great Lakes, I want to acknowledge the leadership of the

Subcommittee, including in particular Congressman Ehlers. That is

a highlight of the budget. It is a high priority of the Administrator.

It is a priority of the President, and $70 million is included in the

budget, and nearly $50 million for implementation of the Great

Lakes Legacy Act, cleaning up those contaminated sediments.

The Chesapeake Bay Program includes approximately $26 million. That is a very important program. It is a national treasure,

and we are very excited about improving and accelerating the

progress with our partners in the Chesapeake Bay.

There are two last things I want to mention, Mr. Chairman. One

of those is water security. That is truly one of the priorities for the

National Water Program, and $53 million is included for water se-
14

curity-related efforts, including $38 million for the Water Sentinel

Program.

The last thing I want to mention is the promise and progress

that we can achieve through Good Samaritan legislation and administrative efforts. Now is the time to move forward in a bipartisan way and enact Good Samaritan legislation. The Administration

and the EPA are committed to working with you and with the

States on Good Samaritan efforts. We are also working administratively to develop a toolbox of tools to provide assistance.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Administrator Grumbles.

Actually, our next hearing at the end of this month will be concerned with the Good Samaritan legislation to which you have referred.

Ms. Bodine?

Ms. BODINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee.

As most of you realize, this is my first hearing as Assistant Administrator of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

I am delighted that this opportunity is happening in front of the

Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee. I am very happy

to be here today to discuss the President’s budget with you with

respect to the programs that fall under the Office of Solid Waste

and Emergency Response.

The President’s budget provides the necessary funds for EPA to

carry out our missions effectively and efficiently. Administrator

Johnson has reminded us that we are not only stewards of the environment, but we are also stewards of the taxpayer dollars. This

budget allows us to achieve both of those goals.

I do want to mention that the Administrator is very heavily focused on results, environmental results, and maximizing the return

on our investments, and has initiated some very good tracking

measures to make sure that that is the case. So we are all focused

on spending our dollars as efficiently as possible and making sure

that we are getting the results for that investment.

For the Superfund Program, the President’s budget request is

$1.259 billion. That represents increased funding from last year.

The increased funding is targeted towards both enforcement and

for homeland security. There is a $9 million increase in enforcement, and that is important because it does ensure that Superfund

cleanups are performed by parties that are responsible for the

waste.

To date, the Superfund program has obtained commitments from

PRPs to pay over $24 billion worth of cleanup, as well as cost recovery efforts. So I want to remind you of that just for context, that

the contribution to date has been $24 billion.

On the increase in homeland security, overall it is a $12 million

increase, but $9.5 million of that is to establish a network of labs.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about this because it is extremely important. It was requested last year as well. It was not

funded. I think that we did perhaps a poor job of explaining the

need to establish a lab network.
15

This is critical to our response efforts in the event of any terrorist attacks. As you might expect, EPA has extremely good and well

established networks of labs to deal with chemical substances,

chemical releases. We do not have that same network established

for both radiological and biological substances. The purpose of the

$9.5 million is to set up the networks of labs that we know can

work with EPA, understand our protocols, and are able to deal

with our databases so that should an event happen, we would be

ready.

I would hope that this year Congress would see fit to fund that. About $2 million of that funding request also is for the National

Decontamination Team’s special equipment. Again, it is the same

issue. It is readiness. We all hope that nothing happens, that there

would not be any attack, but should there be, there is specialized

equipment for the National Decontamination Team that we do not

have right now, and we do need to purchase it. So I am spending

time stressing that because it has not been funded.

The Superfund request allows us to continue the pace of cleanup.

As of January, there were 970 construction completions. Cleanup

construction is underway for over 90 percent of the sites on the

NPL. The goal for construction cleanup this year is 40 sites.

I do want to spend another minute talking about the efforts that

we are taking in the Superfund Program to increase efficiencies,

and also to use our money as best we can. For example, if a contract is closed out and there is still money left in it, we are very

aggressively de-obligating funds so that we can then take that

money and use it at other sites. We are conducting a workload

analysis to make sure that the workload is appropriately distributed across the regions and across the various functions.

We are benchmarking performance because again we are trying

to get the most effectiveness out of our people. We are asking the

regions to share best practices and we are working with all of the

regions on remedy selection, whether it is contaminated sediments

or groundwater. Of course, we also have the Remedy Review Board.

We have expanded the use of that to make sure that we have our

best technical experts in the agency looking at high cost remedies.

On Brownfields, we are maintaining steady funding for the

Brownfields program. The request is what Congress has provided

for the last couple of years. In the past, the President has requested about $200 million for Brownfields, and Congress has not

provided it. So what this year’s request reflects is a recognition

that Congress has not been willing to fund at the $200 million

level, and instead proposes steady funding.

Finally, with my last 29 seconds, I want to talk very briefly

about the Katrina response. I appreciate the support of the Subcommittee with EPA’s Katrina efforts. I want to let you know that

there have been 1,100 EPA employees, not just from the Office of

Solid Waste and Emergency Response, but Office of Water, all

across the agency, all across the regions, volunteers that have gone

down there, away from their homes, away from their families, and

done rotations. They have done a terrific job.

I am very proud of the job they have done. I am very proud of

how EPA has responded to this emergency. We have the lead for

ESF-10, which is oil and hazardous materials. We have support
16

functions under ESF-3. The Corps has the lead for that, and that

is the function under which the debris removal is taking place.

I know that, Mr. Chairman, you have been down there. Other

Members of the Committee have been down there and seen just the

tremendous effort. I just want to convey to you, first, thanks for the

support, as well as my pride in the contribution that EPA has

made.

Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Administrator Bodine. Good

job. The first testimony is always the hardest.

I mentioned bills that Mr. Ehlers and Mr. Bishop had worked on

and shepherded through this Committee, but I remember the major

Brownfields legislation that we passed that you were the lead person on, among many other bills that I can mention. I thought of

that as you were testifying very briefly about the Brownfields situation.

Mr. Dunnigan?

Mr. DUNNIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Johnson, Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here

this afternoon. My name is Jack Dunnigan. I work for NOAA. This

is also my first time for an opportunity to be before this Committee.

I must tell you that I have been in my current position as the

Assistant Administrator for Oceans and Coastal Services for all of

six weeks. I have been learning an awful lot about what it is that

NOAA does in these areas, and in particular how much of the importance of what we do is represented by matters that are of intimate importance to the Members of this Committee on the transportation and navigation services side of what we do.

We are basically in a position in our part of NOAA to be able to

see where conservation and stewardship programs and our navigation programs have to work together, because they are really two

sides of the same coin once you realize that it is all about the

water.

We began to realize that even more so, I think, in response to

the storms that hit the Gulf of Mexico over last summer. NOAA

was very hard in working to move forward and help respond to

those storms. We were flying over the Gulf of Mexico the day after

Hurricane Katrina left so that we could be taking over 9,000 different photos that would be available to emergency response planners.

We had navigation and response teams. We have six of those

around the Country. Four of them were pre-positioned and ready

to be deployed so that we could help the Coast Guard and the

Corps of Engineers to identify areas of water that needed to be reopened so that we could begin commercial transportation along

those waters as soon as possible.

We had two of our large ocean-going research vessels redeployed,

the Thomas Jefferson, which is from the Chesapeake Bay area, and

the Nancy Foster, which works out of South Carolina, to do missions for navigation and environmental surveys.

So in many numbers of ways, what we saw as a result of those

storms last year was how all of NOAA could come together. We in

the National Ocean Service really were a place where all of that
17

had an opportunity to happen. We are certainly very proud of the

efforts that our staff was able to make. We are very proud of the

collaborations that we were able to have with our sister Federal

agencies and working with State and local governments as well.

There are a couple of parts of the President’s request that we

think are particularly important for the Committee that we would

like to point out. One of them has to do with what we saw happen

in the Hurricane Katrina context last year. That relates to response and restoration. The President’s budget is seeking a total of

$16.5 million for this program, which is an increase of about $3

million over what was enacted last year.

This is a critical program because it is the place where we can

provide the scientific support to agencies that have the primary response capabilities when oil spills or hazardous material spills or

large environmental hazards happen. This is a part of our budget

that has been gradually decreasing and whittling away over the

last couple of years. The President’s request would restore that

funding to where this program was in 2003. We think these are essential activities. There is about $1.5 million of those dollars that we lost in the 2006 budget. What we are

afraid of is that if this continues, our ability to support our sister

Federal agencies in difficult times is going to be gradually eroded.

That is not a good thing. It is not a good thing for our collaborative

efforts. It is not a good thing for the people who are affected.

We also have a number of navigation programs that are critically important. The President’s budget is seeking $10.5 million to finish

out surveys according to a plan that was looked at a couple of years

ago that identified parts of our coastline that have not been surveyed, or parts where the surveys are just very old. Over half of

the chart marks that you will see on NOAA charts are 40 to 50

years old or longer, and taken by somebody dropping a lead line

in the water.

You have to ask yourself how accurate, given today’s modern

technology, do we think those are? And what has happened to the

bottom? How has it changed in those four or five decades since

those surveys were taken? So we have identified a plan to survey

by 2017 an additional 43,000 square nautical miles in the United

States. This $10 million that the President has asked for will allow

us to survey an additional 500 square nautical miles this year. In

our base budget, we will be able to do about 2,500 square nautical

miles. This 500 will keep us on a track to be able to complete the

project that we have by 2017.

The President has asked for funding that would allow us to move

towards completion of the suite of electronic navigation charts. The

Coast Guard is going to require by 2010 that all commercial navigation use NOAA’s electronic charts. If they are going to be able

to do that, we have to be able to get the charting done. The amount

of money that is in the President’s budget this year will keep us

on track towards having that finished by the year 2010. It would

allow us to do an extra 70 charts this year in addition to what we

would try to do through our base funding.

I think that these are examples. We are in a part of the President’s budget where there are a lot of opportunities that the Administration has identified that are critical to the environmental
18

stewardship and to the commerce of the United States, that deserve to have some funding. Mr. Ehlers mentioned it earlier in his

opening statement about parts of our budget that have suffered in

some budget issues lately. The President is asking to have that

funding restored. We would certainly ask for the opportunity to do

that.

Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure on my part to be able to introduce

myself to the Committee. I have had a chance to meet with some

of your staff. We look forward to continuing collaborations and

being able to support you as you move forward with the important

work that you have.

Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Dunnigan. Very fine

testimony. Both you and Administrator Bodine mentioned the

Katrina damage. I had the privilege of leading an 11-Member delegation down there about three weeks after that happened. The devastation was just unbelievable. You could not really appreciate it

as much seeing it on a TV screen as in person. Unfortunately, apparently much of that damage is still down there and will be for

awhile.

Thank you very much for the work you have done on it.

Mr. DUNNIGAN. Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Chairman Baxter?

Mr. BAXTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Madam Ranking

Member and Members of the Committee. My name is Bill Baxter.

I am the Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority. On behalf

of the board of directors and the employees of TVA, I want to tell

you, thank you for this opportunity to be here today. It is an honor.

Excuse my voice. I am a basketball fan and I have been screaming during March Madness here.

Mr. DUNCAN. Unfortunately he is a Duke fan, and not a Tennessee fan.

Mr. BAXTER. Well, Duke and Tennessee, for law school, and both

are doing well. They may meet this year.

Director Harris and I look forward to welcoming six new members of the TVA board that have been now confirmed by the United

States Senate just this last week. Having these new board members in place will complete TVA’s transition to a modern part time

board structure that Congress laid out in late 2004. The new board

will consider long term policy, budgets and rates, and hire a CEO

to manage the day to day business of TVA.

With the new board, TVA will continue its mission of service to

8.6 million consumers in the seven State region in three key areas:

providing affordable reliable power; serving as a steward of the region’s natural resources; and supporting economic development.

As you know, TVA is 100 percent self-financing. There are no

congressional appropriations that we seek. However, Congress appropriately has oversight responsibility for TVA in many capacities,

and we are very happy to report to this Committee today.

TVA generates power from a diverse mix of coal, nuclear, hydro,

natural gas, and renewable sources, and in 2005 TVA’s power system had its best performance in its 72 year history. TVA met back

to back peak demands during the summer and had its sixth year

of 99.999 percent transmission reliability.
19

We are also on schedule and on budget to bring online the Nation’s first nuclear reactor in the 21st century. In May of 2007,

Browns Ferry Unit One will add 1,280 new megawatts of safe, low

cost, zero emissions generating capacity to our fleet.

As steward of the valley’s natural resources, we are continuing

to improve the way we manage the Tennessee River, which is the

backbone of the valley and at the heart of TVA’s mission. Managing this river system, which is the fifth largest in the United

States, requires a careful balance of many diversified stakeholders’

needs.

We are also working hard to ensure the valley’s air will be cleaner for our children and grandchildren. Our air quality today in the

Tennessee Valley is the best it has been in decades. When we complete our current clean air commitments, TVA and its ratepayers

will have invested $5.7 billion in one of the most aggressive clean

air programs in the Country.

In economic development last year, TVA partnered with public

officials in local communities to help attract or retain 57,000 jobs

and leverage almost $3.6 billion in new capital investment. In addition to technical assistance and low interest loans, we are now also

providing communities with tools to attract specific industries.

In order to continue to excel in meeting our mission for the valley, we are committed to a disciplined approach to improving our

financial performance. TVA must reduce its total financial obligations which include both statutory debt and alternative financing.

I am pleased to report that since the end of 1996, TVA has cuts

its total financial obligations by $2.1 billion and our strategic plan,

which we have submitted to OMB, calls for by 2016 further reducing our debt by $7.8 billion.

We believe we can meet this goal if we constrain our internal

costs, and we recover the increased costs of fuel and purchase

power that we have all seen recently. These costs are increasing

dramatically for utilities all across the Nation and we are doing our

best to mitigate them. We are working closely with our customers

on long term solutions and we are cutting our own costs to offset

some of these increases.

Unfortunately, we must pass along some of these increases to our

customers and we are endeavoring to keep those to a minimum. As

you know, as I said earlier, TVA is entirely self-financing. In preparing our fiscal year 2007 budget, we are projecting revenue of

around $9 billion. About $1 billion will be spent on capital projects

supporting improved transmission reliability, cleaner air, and the

restart of the first nuclear power plant in America.

Since fiscal year 2000, TVA has funded its stewardship activity

solely out of power revenues, rather than out of appropriations. In

fiscal year 2007, TVA will spend $84 million on water and land

stewardship activity. Beginning with our annual report for fiscal

year 2006, TVA will file financial reports with the SEC. In fiscal

year 2007, we will begin complying with portions of Sarbanes-Oxley

as well.

TVA is transitioning now to a new management structure that

I believe will help TVA lead itself into the future. It is also important to note what is not changing at TVA, and that is our dedica-
20

tion to our mission of service to the valley and to continuing to improve our financial strength.

We will continue to work with the Congress and the Administration and with all of our stakeholders to ensure that we achieve

these goals.

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to be here and I

look forward to answering any questions that you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. Ms. Johnson and I have questions, but

I think we will go first to members, and first to Mr. Gilchrest.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I have three questions, actually four since TVA is here, I am

going to ask you, you can be thinking about this. This will be the

fourth question. BP and Shell have both said that fossil fuel is not

in their future. I would like to know at TVA, what is in your future.

Forgive me if I say Jack or Sue or Ben. I do not mean, you know,

you are all honorable. If I get caught up in a moment and I say

Jack, but anyway, Jack, you referred to Katrina. I think everybody,

including this Committee, did extraordinary work to heal the souls

of people who lost their lives and lost their homes and got separated and things like that.

I think what we saw in Katrina, though, was human activity was

grossly incompatible with nature’s design in that region, and when

you had that huge hurricane, we had this enhanced destruction.

The first question is, when you look at all these programs in

NOAA, in EPA, do you look at the fundamentals of the physics of

the system upon which you are trying to repair or clean up or restore, which is basically geology and hydrology of a particular region?

Now, the fundamentals of an ecological system are the geology

and the hydrology of that system. So when you take a look at,

which is what my next question will be, a prosthesis to correct or

eliminate some of the degradation, do you look at that prosthesis,

which whatever it might be, a sewage treatment plant or a berm

or a barrier or a levee or whatever, do you look at the ecological

system upon which that will be working? The first question.

The second question, the State of Maryland has come up with

something called a flush fee. I know that the Federal Government

certainly cannot do everything for all the sewage treatment plants

and all the revolving loan funds. So Maryland has really stepped

up to the plate and generated about $60 million, $70 million, $80

million a year by charging every homeowner $30 a year, which is

pretty good.

The question, though, is, the technology that we use to eliminate

the problems of sewage and things like that, is that the whole answer to degraded waters? Technology is a prosthesis. It is rarely as

good as a natural design. So are we developing, and this is not a

Federal question, though, because it is all local land use issues, but

do you think we are developing our open space faster than we have

the technology to restore our waters? That is the second question.

The third question is, since we want to have maximum returns

on our investment, Secretary Johnson has said that at EPA, do we

look at a big picture of how to? I mean, I have lines and lines of
21

stuff that I wanted EPA and NOAA here for restoration of the

Chesapeake Bay and things like that, just lines and lines of stuff

that we resubmit every single year.

It seems to me in certain regions of the Country that open space

is a better filtration system for air deposition or other forms of pollution to clean bodies of water. It is possible to re-look at this system of funding in all these various things, and then say for the

first five years we are going to, and there are a lot of willing sellers, purchase acres and acres of easement, development rights in

certain areas, so these areas can have this natural process at work,

and in my region, most of that are wetlands.

So I guess, do you look at the ecological structure before you put

in a particular structure? Do you think we are developing faster

than we have the technology to stay up with it, and the maximum

effective use of the dollars? I do not know if we have time for all

these answers, but those are my questions.

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me say this. We are about to get to a number

of votes in just a few minutes, so I would ask that you make your

responses very, very short, so we can get to some other members

here.

Mr. GILCHREST. They can call them on the phone, Jimmy. Okay?

Mr. DUNCAN. Go ahead, Mr. Grumbles.

Mr. GRUMBLES. The Administrator of EPA and the head of

NOAA entered into a memorandum of agreement a little over a

year ago to work together towards sustainable development in

coastal areas to better instill principles to provide not Federal regulations or mandates, but technical assistance and planning for local

officials to take into account the resiliency and the stressors in the

coastal environment.

You mentioned geology and hydrology and technology. There is

also sociology, and recognizing a lot of it is local land use planning.

I think the agency, our perspective and the Water Program’s perspective, is to provide technical assistance and planning assistance

to make those decisions, and recognizing that buffers, barriers,

coastal barrier islands can be extremely helpful and protect not

just the environment, but people, too, in the instance of hurricanes

and storms.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Dunnigan?

Mr. DUNNIGAN. Yes, thank you, Congressman.

I think I would second what Mr. Grumbles said. You see this, of

course, in the collaboration between NOAA and EPA working in

the Chesapeake Bay, where we focus on trying to make tools that

are available. If we take it back to your question of Hurricane

Katrina, in the weeks immediately following, part of what we did

was to put technical experts on-scene to begin working with local

governments, our experts who understood the geology and the

physical properties, to help that community begin to re-vision what

their future could and ought to look like and how we could help do

it.

But as you said, these are decisions that need to be made by the

people that live there. What we can do is to help provide the technical expertise for them to do that.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22

Chesapeake, an environmental biography by John Winterston, it

is a great read. You guys would love it.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

Mr. Bishop?

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we are getting

called for votes, so I will go quickly.

Mr. Grumbles, it is nice to see you again. I have essentially the

same set of questions that I had last year. The funding for the

Long Island Sound Study is going in the wrong direction. In fiscal

year 2005, we spent $6.8 million on the Long Island Sound Study.

In fiscal year 2006, we provided $2.8 million. The President’s budget request for fiscal year 2007 is $467,000.

I guess I have an observation and a question. My observation is

that within months of signing a bill that authorizes up to $40 million for the Long Island Sound Study Project, how could we get to

a request that is $467,000?

I guess my other question, not to be flip, but what does the Administration know about the Long Island Sound that the rest of us

who live near it don’t?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Congressman, I know your intense interest and

passion in making progress on the Long Island Sound. We certainly

recognize the importance of accelerating progress on Long Island

Sound. A couple of things, one is the funding request is, as you

noted, approximately the same as previous years, and that is to

provide funding for the study, for the office activities, recognizing

that it is not attempting to fund implementation of the comprehensive conservation and management plan. There are other tools and

resources that we all must use to help facilitate that.

The agency has been working very closely over the last year and

a half with the Army Corps on an intensely important effort on the

dredge material management plan for the Long Island Sound. I

know that we all recognize the need to improve the tools and accelerate market based approaches through trading. The water quality

trading efforts in the Long Island Sound, we are very excited

about.

We want to provide the technical assistance and help the States

continue the reduce nutrient loadings into Long Island Sound, recognizing that the Federal funding may not be increasing. It is

going to take a partnership of State and local and nongovernmental

efforts to make progress in the Long Island Sound.

Mr. BISHOP. I thank you for that. I guess my response would be

that you spoke before about the department having two guiding

principles. One was sustainability and the other was stewardship.

I would just suggest that stewardship is still very much required

for Long Island Sound and it does have to be a multi-governmental

effort. The Federal Government, in my view, needs to continue to

be an active player in providing the stewardship for the Sound.

If I may have one more question, Mr. Chairman? I think this is

for Ms. Bodine. I want to ask about the Superfund. The Administration has once again not recommended to the Congress that the

Superfund tax be reinstated. It also continues to forego cost recoveries from responsible parties. So my question is, does the Administration believe in the principle of the polluter pays? And if it does,
23

why is it not requesting that we reinstate the tax? And if it doesn’t,

why doesn’t it?

Ms. BODINE. The Superfund statute does have parties responsible for pollution pay for cleanups, and that is through the liability

provisions. As I noted earlier, the President’s budget actually increases the funding for enforcement efforts, and that we have a cumulative level of effort from PRPs of $24 billion. In fact just in fiscal year 2005, it was $1.1 billion of commitments and cost recoveries.

On your question relating to why aren’t we doing more cost recovery, well, we certainly are. It is better to have the PRPs, the responsible parties, pay for the cleanup up front, so then it is not the

taxpayer dollars being spent. Second, where EPA has spent money,

what we have been doing is recovering those costs and putting

them into special accounts so that we can then use those funds to

conduct more cleanup.

So if you are suggesting that cost recoveries are going down because you are not seeing that amount deposited to the Trust Fund,

I would say no, that is not the indicator. Cost recoveries are very

strong, but we are able to spend that money to do more cleanups

at the site. Again, that is PRP money.

On the taxes, if you looked historically, there has never been a

relationship between the amount of funding that is in the Trust

Fund and the level of appropriations for the Superfund Program.

The Superfund Trust Fund is an on budget trust fund. I know this

Committee understands trust funds very well. There are no firewalls. It is part of the unified budget. It is subject to discretionary

spending caps. So the appropriations annually have been relatively

steady throughout the years, and have borne no relationship to the

level of funding in the Trust Fund.

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

We have run into a problem that I hoped we could have avoided,

but we have six votes, which means we are going to have to go into

a very lengthy break. I apologize. Before I do this break, I do want

to go to Chairman Baxter first of all. I did not give you a chance

to respond to Mr. Gilchrest’s question about fossil fuel. Secondly,

and more importantly to the people of our region, let me just ask

you this. Last fall, the TVA had a rate adjustment, a rate increase.

You mentioned some of these increases that TVA is facing. Natural

gas prices have exploded. Almost all of our energy costs have been

shooting way up.

Do you think that TVA is going to have to have another rate increase anytime soon? What do you see in the near foreseeable future, as best you can?

Mr. BAXTER. As soon as the new board gets with us, which we

hope will just be in a few weeks, we will go to work on our 2007

budget. That will be a part of that, what are our revenue projected

requirements and how do we fund those.

We have been discussing now for nearly a year with our distributors, rather than doing base rate increases, which should be attuned to what our underlying cost of doing business is at TVA, that

we need to consider doing what most other utilities in our region

do, which is have a fuel clause adjuster, which is an automatic for-
24

mula that passes through those costs up and down. We are now

tracking that with our distributors to see how that would work and

that mechanism would work. We have gotten very favorable response to that.

So you could very well see that as part of the 2007 budget, where

the actual base rate for electricity from TVA would go down, and

there would be placed a fuel clause adjuster that would go up and

down automatically with those fuel costs, and be audited by our

distributor customers.

Mr. DUNCAN. As much as possible, you know, our economy overall is very good, primarily because our area has become one of the

most popular retirement areas in the Country. We have a lot of

upper income moving from other parts of the Country.

But that does mean that there is still a pretty wide gap between

the people moving in and we still have a lot of lower income people

in that region. I hope that the new board will keep in mind that

there are a lot of people who still have great difficulty in paying

for their utility needs, and I think we always need to try to keep

that in mind.

We are going to have to break at this time. We will come back

as soon as we can, but it is going to be a little while, and I apologize to you. Mrs. Kelly and some others want to ask some questions, so we cannot just put them in writing, I don’t think.

Ms. Johnson?

Ms. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I don’t think I am going to be able

to come back after this series of six votes, but I would like to submit some questions and wonder if I might request they be responded to in a couple of weeks.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

[Recess.]

Mr. DUNCAN. We will go ahead and start back. Let me apologize.

I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee for six years, and now I am

in my sixth year of chairing this Subcommittee. This is my 18th

year here overall. I have never had a Subcommittee or Committee

meeting interrupted by that many votes all at once, although we

did have an Aviation hearing one time in which we had the presidents of all the major airlines, and Congressman Jose Serrano from

New York got mad and called 24 votes in a row, but we called off

the whole hearing. We did not really get started on it. So I remember that.

I do apologize for making all of you wait. I would have been satisfied to submit these questions to you in writing, but Mrs. Kelly

has some questions that she wants to ask. Until she gets back, I

am going to start going over some things.

Mr. Grumbles, as you could tell from my statement, I am particularly interested in the funding of the SRF Program. You talked

about the $688 million, and said that that would produce $3.4 billion in total funds, and that you thought that was enough. The

$688 million is $200 million below the enacted level last year, and

I am sure you realize that.

Also, I think we had $4.9 billion in total funding, approximately

$5 billion in total funding. Do you see that gap between the $5 bil-
25

lion and the $3.4 billion that you are talking about? Do you see

that as a problem? If not, why not? Because we get all these

groups, that tell us that we have the Water Infrastructure Network, and so many other groups and analysts and experts who tell

us that the needs are out there; that over half of our water infrastructure is over 50 years old; that much of it is over 100 years old.

And they have even come up with a figure, a size $400 billion over

the next 20 years. What do you say about all that?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the question, and I have a couple of points to make. One is that EPA recognizes that there is a large gap between the estimated needs and

the estimated revenues over the next 20 years. We are saying from

a Federal perspective, for the Clean Water SRF, that there needs

to be a continued Federal commitment of seed money, and in 2004

the Administration agreed to a plan, laid out a plan that said, okay

now, if you have an investment over a number of years through

2011, the cumulative amount, $6.8 billion, coupled with some key

assumptions and with the pillars of sustainability, which also

means full cost pricing and local ratepayer support, we think we

can make significant progress in eliminating that gap.

Now, one of the key points that we need to make and agree with

Members of Congress and others is that it requires a shared effort.

The history of the water infrastructure programs and funding

across the Country has been by and large that 90 percent of the

revenues and investments going into infrastructure have been at

the local or State level. We do not expect that to change dramatically over time.

What we are seeking to embrace is a much more aggressive approach for leveraging those funds that are going into the Clean

Water SRF, plus additional concepts like full cost pricing and doing

more with less. The leveraging, the $3.4 billion, I appreciate the

question because it is often easy to either miscommunicate it or

confuse it. That level is what we would project at the level that the

fund would be revolving at in 2015 through 2040 on an annual

basis without Federal funds going in.

The dollars you mentioned, the $5 billion or the nearly $4 billion

amount, what that currently reflects is the Federal funds plus the

State returns. It is not really a self-sustaining revolving level. So

when we say the $3.4 billion, that is the goal we are shooting for

after Federal funding into the SRF would stop by 2011.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

On another issue, you know that I have had particularly one

community in my District, Marysville, Tennessee, my second largest county that has had real concerns or problems about the blending issue. I wonder, and there have been communities all over the

Nation that have been confused or concerned about that and potential costs. In fact, I have been told about possibly extremely high

costs that could potentially be there. Where does the EPA stand on

that now? Have you got that all straightened out so that people

will stop bothering us about that?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Well, we are trying our hardest, Mr. Chairman.

We proposed a peak flow policy, a blending policy that we are very

excited about because it represents progress on that difficult issue,

where in the past you had very strongly held opposing views. We
26

are going through the comments on that policy and we hope to finalize it soon.

What we are striving for is an approach that provides some

greater consistency across the Country in the different regions.

Mr. DUNCAN. Right.

Mr. GRUMBLES. But also recognizes that meeting the Clean

Water Act requirements at the end of the pipe through technology

and through the right process is important. I can tell you, Mr.

Chairman, on the issue of sustainability, we also have an important component and that is affordability. The utilities across the

Country are asking us to take a new look, a fresh look at the affordability policies on clean water infrastructure financing with respect to sewer overflows and long term control plans. We are committed to reviewing that because we recognize that that is one of

the issues that comes across your desk very frequently, and we

have to deal with that as well.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, that has been I think the main concern. It

is a legitimate concern because all these people that run these

water districts and these water utilities around the Country, they

want our water to be as clean and safe as possible. In fact, I am

sure they have a lot more concern about it than just the average

person out there, so they want to do everything they can. But they

also know that it is difficult to come up with the money for some

of these things.

Let me ask you one last question. Everybody today is throwing

out security, talking about security on this and that. Do we have

any problem at all, or should we be concerned about the security

at our water facilities around the Country?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Mr. Chairman, one of the priorities in the Administration’s budget, and certainly the priority of the agency’s operating programs over the last several years has been to work towards instilling a sense of water security, institutionalizing it more

within the context of the clean water programs and the drinking

water programs.

We do have more work to do. We have made progress. The utilities and States, drinking water and wastewater agencies are taking

it very seriously, but we do have a lot of work to do. The Water

Sentinel Program that is requested in the President’s budget, the

$38 million for that, is trying to emphasize in a comprehensive, coordinated monitoring and surveillance approach, particularly for

the drinking water systems across the Country, using five different

data streams for routine as well as triggered monitoring of contaminants of concern, physical surveillance using public health

data and records, to really keep an eye, a wider eye and a more

attuned ear to potential problems, particularly in distribution systems.

So we do have more work to do on the water security front.

Mr. DUNCAN. I said I was not going to ask you any more questions, but you used to work for our friend, Chairman Boehlert. You

heard me mention that he used to enjoy making anti-TVA comments. Were you the one responsible for coming up with those comments or questions?

[Laughter.]

Mr. GRUMBLES. I think Susan can answer that question.
27

[Laughter.]

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

Assistant Administrator Bodine, the staff that you left me with,

which is a very good staff, they tell me that it is very difficult to

try to determine exactly how Superfund money is spent, and that

half of it, or over half of it is not being spent on actual cleanup

work. I remember, of course even that is much better. I remember

reading a lengthy article about the Superfund years ago, and that

article said that 85 percent of the money at that time was being

spent on bureaucratic administrative costs, and particularly the

cost of the litigation, paperwork and so forth.

Now, since you have been over there, what have you found out

about this? Have you been able to get a handle on that? Do you

think that that still is a problem? If it is, what do you propose to

do to improve the management of Superfund resources?

Ms. BODINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

That is an issue that I have studied for a long time. I would say

that there are still challenges within the Superfund Program in

terms of dealing with the most efficient, effective way of using its

resources. There have been a number of studies. The Administrator

had commissioned when he was Deputy Administrator a study

called the 120 Day Study, that had a number of recommendations

for efficiencies, some of which I cited in my testimony, ideas like

benchmarking; ideas like expanding the oversight of remedies that

are coming through to save costs; concepts like perhaps reexamining our workforce allocation to make sure that our resources are

distributed in the most effective way.

The response, the follow-up activities to those recommendations,

are underway and are under my oversight. They are now my responsibility, and I take that very seriously. That is something that

we are going to continue to be working on for a long time, to try

to make sure that we are spending the resources effectively. It is

not a six month project, but over the next three years I hope that

we then will be reporting back to you that we have succeeded in

making the program as efficient as possible. But I will concede to

you that there is still work to be done.

Mr. DUNCAN. How is the Supreme Court’s decision in the Cooper

Industries case impacting the spending on the Superfund and

Brownfields? Is it having an effect?

Ms. BODINE. Well, that case had to do with the ability of one private party to recover costs from another private party, so it has not

impacted EPA’s activities, but we do hear anecdotally, and I don’t

have data on this, but anecdotally we are told that it could have

a potential problem of making people reluctant to step forward to

clean up voluntarily if they then cannot recover their costs because

someone else is responsible, but I don’t have data on that. That is

anecdotal.

Mr. DUNCAN. Roughly, what percentage of the Superfund Program is paid for by private parties or from private funds? Do you

know, from the settlements of lawsuits and those types?

Ms. BODINE. I do not have an exact number. I would say that for

example at the end of last year, in fiscal year 2005, the responsible

parties did make payments and commitments to do future work

that totaled $1.1 billion. That was a high number. That was a good
28

year. But the responsible party commitments have been at a fairly

good pace. The appropriated funds were, again, roughly about

$1.25 billion.

Mr. DUNCAN. You heard, I can’t remember whether it was Mr.

Bishop or Mr. Pascrell mention that either in the last year or the

average number of Superfund sites cleaned up during the Clinton

years was 87 or something or 86 or 87, and now you are proposing

to clean up 40 Superfund sites. But you also mention that, if I

heard you correctly, that over 90 percent of the sites on the national priorities list, the NPL, have been cleaned up. Is that correct? Or work was being done?

Ms. BODINE. Correct. I said that cleanup was underway at over

90 percent. Either cleanup was completed or underway at 90 percent of the sites.

The phenomenon we have right now is in the early days of the

program, there were few completions simply because of the effect

of getting the program up and running and moving sites through

the process. In the 1990s, there certainly were a number of sites

that were ready for completion at that time, and Congress was also

very concerned about completions, and therefore there was a policy

within EPA of completing as many sites as possible.

If you look at the statistics on EPA’s out of pocket costs with respect to those sites, what the agency was paying to get those construction completions, the statistics that I have were from 1993 to

2000, but you have 659 sites completed from 1993 to 2001, so 659

sites had construction completed during those years. But 511 had

EPA costs of less than $5 million. In fact, 262 of those, also included in the 511, had EPA costs of less than $1 million, and in

fact 63 sites had no remedial action at all.

So what you see was very rapid construction and completion of

sites that really were not requiring a significant investment. If you

look at the sites that we have remaining, for example out of a universe of 581 sites that are not yet construction complete, 128 of

those are Federal facilities, which are huge sites, many operable

units, and 106 of those, in addition to the Federal facilities, are

what we call mega-sites, where the costs are over $50 million, and

124 of those are sites that are new to the program. They have been

on the NPL for less than five years.

So I guess in response, what we are seeing is a management of

the program of less expensive site completions. What we have left

are more expensive sites, and that is what I am now responsible

for managing those sites. What I would like to do is manage those

sites on the basis of risk, and deal with these to address the risks

that are presented.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, that is a good explanation.

Let me ask you this. I mentioned that you did some good work

on our Brownfields legislation a few years ago. Where do we stand

on those grants? Do you feel like there has been some real progress

made, good work done? There has been a decrease in the requested

funding for the grants program for Brownfields. That does not necessarily mean that the overall spending on Brownfields, though, is

going down. Where do we stand on all that? What can you tell us?

Ms. BODINE. Well, first the request is in line with what the

Brownfields appropriations have been. The request represents
29

steady funding for the Brownfields Program. With this request, we

would expect that with the Federal dollars, we would be providing

grants to assess 1,000 Brownfields sites and that we would be providing 60 cleanup grants.

The goal then is that those dollars, and that is the Federal in- vestment, would then leverage at least $900 million in cleanup or

redevelopment funding, as well as 5,000 jobs. So the beauty of the

Brownfields Program is that the relative Federal contribution is

small, but then you end up leveraging a tremendous amount of private cleanup and redevelopment dollars, which then do translate

into jobs, which is the goal of the revitalization.

Mr. DUNCAN. And as I understand it, there were about 6,000

Brownfields sites identified. Can you tell us how many of those

have been redeveloped or put back into productive use?

Ms. BODINE. Six thousand as a universe?

Mr. DUNCAN. What I have from the staff says that since 1995,

more than 6,000 Brownfields sites have been assessed. It tells that

over 2,100 properties have been made ready for reuse. That is what

I was referring to. I did not have it right at hand when I mentioned

that. I just wondered. Is that similar to the information you see?

Ms. BODINE. I have the total numbers. I do not have the breakdown, but I can certainly get that to you in terms of how many

properties. We track, or our grantees do, and we are tracking what

the State voluntary cleanup programs are accomplishing as well. I

do have a statistic that just shows the growth of the effort in this

area, and that is that before 2000, apparently State voluntary

cleanup programs had worked on about 5,000 sites, but between

2000 and the present, that number has gone up to 50,000.

Now, that does not mean they all required cleanup, but part of

making things available for use is in many cases doing a site assessment to say that the properties are acceptable. Now, that does

not mean Federal dollars were spent on that 50,000 either. But it

means that there has been tremendous support and expansion of

Brownfields efforts in recent years that I think everyone should be

proud of.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I have a couple more questions, but I was

going on and on because I had gotten word that Mrs. Kelly was not

able to come back, and now she is here. So I am going to turn it

over at this time to Congresswoman Kelly.

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have some very serious concerns I would like to raise with Ms.

Bodine. I have serious concerns about TCE. It is a toxic chemical

that has been associated with many, many health risks, including

birth defects and cancer. The Hopewell Precision Superfund site is

in my congressional District. It is contaminated with TCE. On numerous times, I have raised the TCE issue with EPA officials, and

I feel that the EPA has actually been very responsive on the

ground at the Hopewell Precision site, and they have been very

helpful to the families living there. But the EPA here in Washington has not demonstrated that kind of urgency with regard to TCE

issues.

The EPA issued a TCE health risk assessment in 2001. That risk

assessment determined that TCE is far more toxic than they previously thought. Yet instead of acting immediately, three years
30

later in 2004, that report was referred simply to the National Academy of Sciences for more review.

So here we are nearly five years later and we still do not have

a clear national standard for addressing the TCE contamination.

My constituents and I really feel that the EPA is not focusing on

the health risks that are associated with the TCE problem. I really

have been pushing hard to get some kind of a designation and

some information on it.

Along with several of my House colleagues, we have really asked

for a protective interim approach to the TCE problem. Apparently

that assessment still has not been finished from the National Academy of Sciences.

So I wonder if you could tell me, why won’t the EPA issue an

interim standard on TCE while we are waiting for the National

Academy of Sciences to do this re-review?

Ms. BODINE. Thank you, Congresswoman.

Steve Johnson, the Administrator of EPA, is a scientist. If you

know his background, you know that he was a career employee and

came out of the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances. He is

very strongly committed to using sound science, the best available

science to address environmental problems.

In the 2001 draft risk assessment, there were questions as to the

adequacy of the science. He felt that it was appropriate to get the

best available science, and that is why he has referred that to the

National Academy of Sciences. That does not mean that work is not

underway and not ongoing at sites that have TCE vapor intrusion

issues.

As you know, Region II is out there assessing sites and doing remedial actions, removal actions, and dealing with the TCE issues.

They are using the draft guidance from 2001, as well as New York

State. They are working with the New York State Department of

Health to set their levels. Essentially, that would be the screening

levels.

If you have the vapor intrusion problem, the remedy often is

similar to what you would do with radon, which is ventilation. For

example at your Hopewell site, the systems have been installed in

at least 37 homes. There is activity. So I guess what I am trying

to convey to you is while we are getting the best available science

on the site’s level that is recommended, we are still moving forward

with the science that we have today, which is the existing guidance

plus the State levels.

Mrs. KELLY. But there is still no interim standard. While you are

waiting for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with a

scientific background, there ought to be something that is a standard, because we know that this is toxic. You know, and the EPA

knows, everybody knows that this is toxic. We need a standard and

we need to do something.

I would think it would be pretty easy for you, since you already

have a lot of information. This has been going on since 2001. I

would think it would be pretty easy for you to come up with some

kind of an interim standard until we get an absolute standard that

comes from the National Academy of Sciences.

The EPA on ground in New York has been very helpful. I do not

want to cast any aspersions on their work. They have been helpful
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and they have helped with ventilation in this kind of a thing. The

problem is we have this plume moving, and the constituents that

I represent are very concerned that this is moving on down and we

simply do not know.

You have to break a certain number on a piece of paper before

anyone will come in and help you remediate. In the meantime, how

do you know it is not toxic up to that number? That is the problem.

So I am trying to find out whether or not you would be willing

to look at doing some kind of an interim standard, because nothing

is really black and white. There are usually levels of gray. If we

are moving into a gray area on the TCE in these wells, and that

gray area is something that might involve being a toxic level for

children because children’s toxic levels are lower than adults,

maybe there is something that we should put in as a standard

right now to take a look at it.

Also, I wanted to ask you about the status of the re-review over

at the NAS. When are they going to release those results? We are

hopeful that we can get them sooner rather than later because they

have had it for awhile. I know it takes time to do the studies, but

I really am hopeful about two things. I would like an answer to

that first question.

But also if you would, give me some kind of, take a look, just

take a look and see if we can’t get some kind of an interim standard, because I am concerned that the standard will come out and

it will be lower than what it currently is. And then we will have

people on wells with a standard that they were told was fine, a

level that they were told was fine, and it is not fine.

Ms. BODINE. There isn’t a standard right now that the agency

can stand behind and say that it is based on best available science,

which is why the regions are using, as I said, they are using the

draft guidance as well as working with States on establishing the

levels. Region II is going out and assessing properties and they are

addressing the properties in a very proactive way.

So work is not halted while we are getting a standard that we

can stand behind, because right now there is not one that we can

stand behind and say this is the national guidance; this is the

level.

Mrs. KELLY. And you are unwilling to give us an interim standard or some kind of, just give us like two numbers. These are the

worry areas, from this to this. If you give us some kind of levels,

at least the people that I represent will have a cohesive understanding about when they should start to worry.

Ms. BODINE. Then I need to go back and talk to Region II, because my understanding is they are not standing back and waiting

for the NAS study to come back. They are establishing their levels

based on their best professional judgment, which includes using the

draft guidance as well as the State Department of Health levels.

The NAS report, it is a two stage report. The first stage will be

out in May, 2006, but that was really essentially the existing body

of knowledge, and they estimate that the peer review on a final assessment would be completed in 2007, which means that the number would be completed in 2008. So what we are doing is getting

a peer review by the NAS on TCEs.
32

Mrs. KELLY. You are telling me that these people in the area

have to wait until 2008 for something that started in 2001? When

you are talking about health risk, waiting for seven years to find

something out. I am not holding you personally responsible. Please

understand that. What I am trying to do is hopefully get you to put

some pressure on this situation so we can get a response to help

these people.

The District I represent isn’t the only one that is contaminated

with TCE. We have got to have something to tell our people. Especially women and children are very, very concerned. Our bodies are

smaller, our children. Who knows what is going to happen if you

get pregnant or if you are drinking this water? How is that going

to affect your child? We do not know.

Now, you are saying we have to wait until 2008. That is really

unacceptable.

Ms. BODINE. But remember, the EPA is not waiting and is being

proactive and is going out and working in your communities on

these sites.

Mrs. KELLY. On the present level, but the question you raised

yourself is that you were not sure that that science established that

level was correct. That is why in 2004 the request went from your

agency to the NAS. And the NAS is, if anything, just dragging its

feet apparently, because they got it four years ago.

I only know from my own personal experience as a bench chemist

in a manufacturing situation and as a medical researcher for Harvard University that unless something is requested and it is requested right away, it does not get done. It gets done partially and

then gets pushed off until somebody else gets it. Things get put in

front of it.

I would suggest that the people in this area who are battling this

problem and this plume is moving down and it is moving down into

some very serious areas that we need to understand better, that

force us to need to understand better what this level is.

Please understand, I am very grateful for what the EPA has

done to help the people there, but they have to wait until they have

a certain level. They are told, oh, you have TCE, but you are not

at the level where we are really concerned, so we are going to let

you drink this and bathe in it and cook in it until you get the level

that suddenly says, oops, emergency, and then EPA comes in and

helps.

I am asking for something that is more flexible than that. I am

asking for something that works a little bit more easily to help

these people protect themselves if we find out that the level of TCE

is not a level that is currently established, but one that is in fact

lower. Because that was the original finding, that the current level

was established at a level that in fact was more, the TCE is more

toxic than we thought.

So that is the nature of my concern, because it is more toxic than

we thought, I want to make sure that we get something.

Ms. BODINE. Let me go back and talk to Region II about how

they are doing the screening and get back to you then.

Mrs. KELLY. I really would appreciate that.

I do want to say to both you and Mr. Grumbles, it is a great

pleasure to see you sitting here in this Committee with the word
33

‘‘honorable’’ in front of your names. I have to say that working with

both of you, you deserve to have that ‘‘honorable’’ designation. You

have done a great deal of good work here and it is a pleasure to

continue to work with you.

I want to add one thing, though, to Mr. Grumbles, and that is

the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. I Know that our Chairman

has amply discussed this with you, but the fact that this is a loan

program which gets paid back. It is not grants. It is not going to

cost the way that a grant program does. I find the President’s

budget request simply unacceptable. I think that our Chairman

feels the same way, and I hope that that will go back.

I appreciate both of you. I appreciate all of you being here, and

I really appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your forbearance in allowing me

to have this discussion. Thank you very much.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mrs. Kelly. You are an outstanding member of this Subcommittee and I know your great interest and concern on these matters.

Let me ask just two or three more questions, then we will bring

this to a close.

Mr. Dunnigan, the Resources Committee says that we spend a

little over $8 billion a year on all ocean-related activities in this

Country, and that is far more than any other country. Yet there

has been a presidential commission that has recommended that we

try to greatly increase that spending. Are we doing a good job on

our ocean-related activities at this time? And if we need a big increase, what would it be spent on? Where are we falling short, if

we are?

Mr. DUNNIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The United States is in a position where we are able to recognize

the important role that the oceans and that our coasts play in the

fabric of the life of America, as well as our economic productivity.

So among the countries of the world, we are able to step forward.

The U.S. Ocean Commission report highlighted a number of

areas that needed further attention. The President looked at that

very carefully and has directed the Federal agencies to move forward where we can within existing resources to be able to try to

address those, to do our job better, to collaborate better internally,

and with States and with our sister agencies.

The problem you have here is really a question of a broad suite

of national priorities, and where can this fit in. We are never going

to be able to have obviously all of the resources that we all might

like to have to do this job, but the issue really is one that has to

be a matter of balancing and making difficult choices, as the Congress has to do, about where we are going to be able to make the

investments and use the resources most wisely.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

Mr. Baxter, a more localized question; you touched on a couple

of these things, but how much has the Browns Ferry plant been

costing TVA on a yearly basis? And how much difference is that

going to make when you get that started up here is it in 2007?

Mr. BAXTER. Yes, sir. May of 2007, and I am proud to report to

you we are on schedule and on budget. It is a $1.8 billion project

over five years. So that has not been an even spend all the way
34

through, but most recently $400 million a year has been the rate

of spend. In 2007, that will go down since it will be a partial year.

Then when we turn that on in May of 2007, instead of spending

money every year, we will actually begin to enjoy some revenue

from the sale of that low cost zero emissions power.

Mr. DUNCAN. Do you know about how much?

Mr. BAXTER. That will be a swing of I would say anywhere from $600 million to $700 million a year from the spend side, but now

to a revenue side.

Mr. DUNCAN. I understand that now you are buying 12 percent

to 15 percent of your power from private companies like Duke

Power and others. Is that correct?

Mr. BAXTER. We have to buy in the hottest summer days in that

range, and over an annual period of time approximately 7.5 percent

of our power was purchased last fiscal year because we are not generating enough with our own base load, and that is what Browns

Ferry One will help us do, and will alleviate the need to purchase

so much on the marketplace.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. You mentioned TVA’s air pollution cleanup activities. The New Republic magazine three or four years ago

had a big article about how our air and water are both much cleaner than they were 25 or 30 years ago. We have made great progress

in both those areas. Do we need to do more? Yes, but we have

made great progress.

The bar has been raised in our area. They have changed the

standard from a one hour .08 level, to an eight hour .12 requirement, or vice versa, on the .12 to the .08, but they have gone from

a one hour standard to an eight hour testing period.

What that means, is that sometimes people have the impression

that our air is getting less clean in the valley instead of cleaner.

Tell me a little bit about what you are doing, and a little bit more

about what you are doing through TVA?

Mr. BAXTER. You make an excellent observation. In fact, our own

Senator Baker was one of the authors of the Clean Air Act back

in the 1970s. The Clean Air Act has been a tremendous success.

It set a bar for all of us that we had to achieve on reducing emissions of various identified pollutants, and we identified areas of the

Country and communities that were out of compliance with those

standards.

Over a period of time and after the expenditure of literally billions of dollars in this Country, we achieved compliance in most all

of those areas. Then as a result, 10 or 12 years later, we tightened

those standards and said, okay, now we want to take it down even

further. And that would throw communities back into noncompliance and they would have to go to work again.

This has happened, we are in about the fourth iteration of that

now most recently. Of course, it becomes incrementally more expensive to achieve another percent of cleanliness in the year as you

get closer and closer to 100 percent. TVA when we complete our $5.7 billion program at the end of

this decade, we will have achieved 80 percent to 85 percent reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which are the two main

pollutants that come out of our plants. Then we will get co-benefits

with the reduction of mercury in that same neighborhood.
35

So we are making tremendous progress. Like you, I grew up in

East Tennessee. I can remember being young and going to church

in a white shirt and seeing coal dust on your shirt when you came

back home. That does not happen anymore. My four children, I

guarantee you today, are breathing cleaner air than I ever

breathed growing up in East Tennessee and I am proud of that.

Mr. DUNCAN. I want to thank you. You are doing a lot of good

work in that area and so many other areas.

Finally, Mr. Grumbles, I read a few years ago a column by

former Governor DuPont. He said that you could put every family

of four in the State of Texas and give them three acres of land each

and leave the whole rest of the Country totally empty. And yet,

people look at map of the whole United States on one page in a

book and they just cannot comprehend how huge this Country is.

I guess the other side is that people say they want land around

them, but they really don’t. They want to be near the malls and

the restaurants and the movie theaters. What I am getting at is

this. The Federal Government owns or controls a little over 30 percent of the land. The State and local governments and quasi-governmental agencies have another roughly 20 percent. So you have

about half the land in some type of public ownership now. And

then we keep putting more and more restrictions on the land that

remains in private hands.

Governments all over are needing or demanding more money, yet

we keep shrinking the tax base. I hear from homebuilders and developers at times that they are having some real difficulties with

these storm water discharge regulations and sometimes they are

fined and so forth, and that some of these requirements are duplicative of State and local requirements. In many, many areas, there

is so little land less to develop that we are crowding more and more

people into smaller and smaller areas. We are having to go to

townhouses rather than homes. We are having to go to homes on

postage stamp size lots.

Home ownership has always been a really important part of the

American dream. We do not want to limit that just to the wealthy.

In this area, you see that, in a lot of places. Even in the area I live

in, six miles from the Capitol here in Alexandria, you see homes

are just out of sight.

What are you doing in that regard? Are you trying to work with

these developers and homebuilders in some ways to make housing

more affordable? I think that is really an important challenge in

this Country. When I see homes out here in Alexandria and other

places around here that are asking $1 million and $2 million for

now, in my area, it is just crazy. Apparently from what I read, that

is happening in many places around the Country.

Mr. GRUMBLES. Mr. Chairman, while EPA recognizes that in

some watersheds and across the Country one of the greatest challenges to water quality can be the pollutants and sediments in

storm water. We need to do more work on the effectiveness and efficiency and equitable nature of the storm water regulatory program as it is implemented through the Federal Clean Water Act.

There are a couple of things we are doing that I would mention.

One of them is, as we work with States and localities implementing

the storm water permitting program under the Clean Water Act,
36

both Phase I and Phase II, which gets at the smaller communities

and the construction sites across the Country, we recognize that we

have to do a better job taking a results oriented focus that is based

on science and includes feasibility.

Results oriented so that we do not get hung up on the costly

process of going through detailed permitting programs, but focus on

general and flexible permits that have the results approach of

meeting Clean Water Act requirements.

The key is working at the local basis through our regions and

most importantly through the States, who really implement the

clean water programs. The homebuilders in particular, Mr. Chairman, have raised the concern. Environmental groups have raised

concerns as well about implementation of the Storm Water Program. So we are sorting through and working through those concerns.

With the homebuilders, one of the key complaints they have is

the potential for duplication. So we are committed to working with

the States on the management practices so that there are not multiples, you know, that a developer has to get a permit that is the

same as the permit that the city just got. There needs to be greater

jurisdiction-wide coordination.

We will work on that. I would be happy to report back to you and

to Congresswoman Johnson on the progress on that front.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I just don’t believe that most homebuilders

and developers are criminals. I believe 99.99 percent of them want

to do the right thing. I don’t want to see any department or energy

of the Federal Government with this gotcha type attitude where

they pride themselves on how many people they catch doing something wrong. But, they pride themselves on working with these

people to help them do the right thing in the most cost effective

way possible. Because if we do not, then you are going to see home

ownership just go. The really important point goal here is to make

sure that home ownership doesn’t just become an impossible dream

for most young couples around the Country.

It is not just in this area. This is happening in many, many,

many places all over this Country. So is it is a concern of mine,

and I think there is a balance that we can achieve there, and I

hope that we will work on that.

Mr. GRUMBLES. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to say, I cannot

speak for the enforcement office, but they also have a compliance

assurance office, and they are working, they are exploring pilot

projects with developers to assure compliance with the Clean

Water Act in a way that does not focus on penalizing, but more on

complying with reasonable requirements. So they are working on

that. I appreciate the message. We will report back to you and your

colleagues on that.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. As usual, first of all, let me thank you

again for your patience, and I apologize to you for the delay caused

by those votes. As usual, the staff may wish to submit some questions to supplement your testimony, and your response to questions

for the record of the hearing. I believe Ms. Johnson was going to

submit some questions as well.

Thank you very much. That will conclude this hearing.

[Whereupon, at 5:12 p.m. the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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