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78R14111 CCK-D
By: Hilderbran H.C.R. No. 246
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.