TO THE HONORABLE BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:
We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of
Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled,
respectfully represent and petition as follows:
WHEREAS, The Congress has enacted comprehensive
national legislation protecting public health and preserving the environment,
including such measures as the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act,
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Air Act, the Toxic
Substance Control Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide
Act; and
WHEREAS, The provisions of each of these
measures and other similar measures envision a partnership and shared
responsibility between the federal government and state governments for
assuring that their objectives be attained and that they are best administered
at the state or local level where the issues, problems, and remedies under each
are best understood; and
WHEREAS, The State of Washington has formally
accepted the delegation of responsibility from the federal government for
administration and enforcement under these and other similar measures; and
WHEREAS, Each of these programs contains an
express or implied promise of adequate federal resources to the states to
assure full implementation of their requirements; and
WHEREAS, The costs to the states of
administering each of these programs is escalating rapidly, while the level of
support and funding to the states from the federal government for these
programs is either declining or failing to keep pace with the cost of new
requirements being imposed at the federal level; and
WHEREAS, It is incumbent upon the federal
government, as part of its shared responsibility with state and local governments
to assure safe drinking water; clean air; clean rivers, streams, and aquifers;
safe disposal of contaminants; and the general health and safety of the
citizens of this country, to provide adequate resources to the states that have
accepted delegation of responsibility for enforcement of these federal programs
with the understanding that the delegation includes a commitment by the federal
government to provide such resources; and
WHEREAS, The Washington State Department of
Health has determined that it will need to increase its budget by eight million
six hundred thousand dollars over the next two years simply to provide adequate
staff to carry out its mandates under the Safe Drinking Water Act administered
by the Environmental Protection Agency; and
WHEREAS, The Washington State Department of
Health conducted a Public Water System Needs Assessment in 1992, which
concluded that the state's water systems will need to incur additional capital
expenditures of six hundred eighty-six million dollars between 1993 and 1999
because of new requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act, including
millions of dollars for surface water treatment and other Safe Drinking Water
Act requirements in 1993; and
WHEREAS, The costs incurred under these Safe
Drinking Water Act requirements, both to the Department of Health and to the
state's public water systems, may not be related to significant risks to the
public health that exist in the State of Washington; and
WHEREAS, The federal government is proposing
only modest increases in the federal grant to the State of Washington and other
states for administering the Safe Drinking Water Act, in the face of major
increases in costs to the state; and
WHEREAS, The federal government currently has
no comprehensive and large-scale program of financial assistance to public
water systems that will be forced to incur major capital costs for Safe
Drinking Water Act compliance; and
WHEREAS, States are faced with major increased
costs for administering many of these federal programs simultaneously and in
the face of increasingly difficult fiscal situations; and
WHEREAS, The State of Washington is currently
facing a budget deficit of approximately one and one-half billion to two
billion dollars in a total budget of approximately sixteen billion dollars,
which is forcing many painful decisions on budget cuts and tax or other revenue
increases; and
WHEREAS, Both the Safe Drinking Water Act and
the Clean Water Act are due for federal reauthorization; and
WHEREAS, The National Governors Conference in
1992 adopted an eight-point program with regard to reauthorization of the Safe
Drinking Water Act that addresses many of these issues; and
WHEREAS, President Clinton has announced a
program to provide both short-term and long-term investment into the
infrastructure of this country, including its water systems; and
WHEREAS, The State of Washington desires to
maintain the high quality of its waters and environment and the high level of
health of its citizens;
NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully
pray that the President and the Congress of the United States:
(1) Review in a comprehensive fashion the Safe
Drinking Water Act and other similar measures to assess the impact upon the
states, local governments, and others subject to their provisions of the costs
of complying with them and whether such costs are justified by the risk being
addressed;
(2) Substantially increase to the states the
amount of resources necessary to implement federal programs, so that the state
financial burden is restored to the levels and proportions originally
contemplated under such legislation;
(3) Study and implement, where appropriate,
modified delegation and enforcement of federal laws to reflect the state's
ability to implement and enforce all or a portion of such federal laws;
(4) Require that federal agencies accept the
responsibility for implementation and enforcement of federal laws where the
federal government has not provided adequate resources for the state to do so;
(5) Reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act,
incorporating the recommendations of the National Governors Conference with
regard to additional flexibility in state enforcement, increased efficiency in
the operation of the Safe Drinking Water Act program, and increased resources
to the states and water systems to meet the Safe Drinking Water Act
requirements; and
(6) Make substantial funding available, for
both 1993 and long-term needs, to water systems that are required to make
capital improvements to their systems because of provisions of the Safe
Drinking Water Act.
BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be
immediately transmitted to the Honorable Bill Clinton, President of the United
States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.
