78R14111 CCK-D


By:  Hilderbran                                                 H.C.R. No. 246



HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	WHEREAS, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 
acting pursuant to the requirements of the federal Safe Drinking 
Water Act (SDWA), has promulgated water quality maximum contaminant 
level (MCL) standards for naturally occurring materials, including 
radionuclides and arsenic; and
	WHEREAS, Inadequate cost-benefit analysis was conducted 
relative to the standards and the associated impacts on small 
community water systems (fewer than 10,000 customers); the 
standards not only impose an unfunded mandate on many local Texas 
water systems and suppliers, but their pending implementation 
represents no demonstrable offsetting enhancement to public 
health; and
	WHEREAS, In the case of radionuclides, the Radiation Advisory 
Board of the Texas Department of Health has questioned forcefully 
the adequacy of the associated science, finding the standards set 
by the EPA to be based on unvalidated and overly theoretical 
mathematical models; and
	WHEREAS, In the case of arsenic, the EPA on April 18, 2003, 
announced that it is still attempting to identify and evaluate the 
ability of commercially available technologies and engineering or 
other approaches to cost-effectively meet the new standards at such 
small community water systems; and
	WHEREAS, Small community water systems in Texas, 
particularly those lacking other reasonable supply options, are 
highly vulnerable to the devastating hardship of the standards 
because either they fiscally cannot afford compliance or they risk 
losing access to their only existing source of safe drinking water; 
and
	WHEREAS, The SDWA provides little or no permanent relief for 
these affected systems, in the form of variances or exceptions, and 
the federal government arguably has overstepped its constitutional 
authority in mandating compliance with federal standards by state 
waters that have no relationship for potential communicable or 
contagious impacts in the absence of the necessary funds to achieve 
that compliance; now, therefore, be it
	RESOLVED, That the 78th Legislature of the State of Texas 
hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to 
provide full and complete funding for all costs associated with 
treatment and disposal of naturally occurring materials as 
necessary to achieve regulatory compliance among the states or, in 
the alternative, to provide express statutory relief from the 
requirements of EPA standards relating to naturally occurring 
materials in the case of small community water systems with no 
alternative water supplies; and, be it further
	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official 
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to 
the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the 
senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the 
Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this 
resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a 
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.