WATER RESEARCH FOUNDATION ACT OF 1985

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1985

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met at 2:19 p.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. David F. Durenberger (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senator Durenberger.

Staff present: Judy Erickson, professional staff member, and Jodi Mathison, chief clerk.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURENBERGER

Senator DURENBERGER. The hearing will come to order. We are here this afternoon to take testimony on S. 904, the Water Research Foundation Act of 1985.

This far-sighted, far-reaching legislation is based on a report from the President's Council on Environmental Quality. It establishes a Water Research Foundation which incorporates two separate but coordinated centers: the Water Research Planning Center and a Water Information Clearinghouse.

The research center is designed to promote and support the water research activities already initiated within the various States and to make recommendations for additional short- and long-term water research needs.

The clearinghouse is established to make credible information available not only to water professionals, but to Government officials, businesses, academic institutions, the public media, and interested citizens.

The Foundation is designed to complement, not duplicate, current Federal, State, and private research efforts.

Over in the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have begun a series of hearings on ground-water contamination, the latest of those this morning. We had two hearings this week. We will have a number in the future, and it is our hope that by the end of the summer, we will have developed legislation to implement a national ground-water protection plan.

I am a cosponsor of legislation we are considering today. I can see how it will improve our understanding of management and protection of ground-water resources. I am, and I am sure a number of my colleagues will share this feeling, concerned to a degree with the price tag that it carries.

[Senator Durenberger's prepared statement follows:]

(1)

PREPARED Statement of SENATOR DURENBERGER

We are here this afternoon to take testimony on S. 904, the Water Research Foundation Act of 1985.

This far sighted, far reaching legislation is based on a report from the President's Council on Environmental Quality. It establishes a Water Research Foundation which incorporates two separate but coordinated centers: The Water Research Planning Center and a Water Information Clearinghouse.

The Research Planning Center is designed to promote and support the water research activities already initiated within the various states and to make recommendations for additional short and long term water research needs.

The Clearinghouse is established to make credible information available not only to water professionals but to government officials, businesses, academic institutions, the public media and interested citizens.

The Foundation would cover the whole range of water resource issues, including groundwater, surface water, estuarine water, atmospheric water, characteristics, usage and institutional factors. It is designed to complement, not duplicate, current Federal, State and private research efforts.

Over in the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have begun a series of hearings on groundwater contamination. We had two hearings this week and we hope to have a number more in the near future. It is my hope that by the end of the summer we will have developed legislation to implement a national groundwater protection plan.

On Monday, we had a witness from the U.S. Geological Survey. Many of you involved in water research know that USGS is the nation's largest scientific and data collection agency concerned with water resources. This year USGS will spend over $90 million on groundwater research and data collection alone!

USGS, EPA and many state agencies are conducting groundwater research, and there is an abundance of raw data. But in many cases, this existing information is insufficient to address new problems or to analyze new aspects of aquifer development or protection. In addition, coordination between these agencies and the states could be improved.

I am a cosponsor of the legislation we are considering today, and I can see how it will improve our understanding, management, and protection of groundwater resources. But I am, and I am sure a number of my colleagues will share this feeling, concerned with the price tag this bill carries.

I look forward to hearing from a number of witnesses, starting with the chief sponsor of this bill, Senator DeConcini, who will weigh the costs and the benefits a water research foundation will provide to water resource problems and future planning.

Senator DeConcini, it is a pleasure to have you here this afternoon.

Senator DURENBERGER. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, particularly the chief sponsor, the author of this bill, our colleague, Senator Dennis DeConcini. He will weigh for us the costs and benefits a water research foundation will provide the water resource problems and future planning.

Dennis, it is a pleasure to have you here this afternoon.

TESTIMONY OF HON. DENNIS DeCONCINI, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

Senator DECONCINI. Thank you, Chairman Durenberger. Thank you very much. I want to tell you how much I appreciate your taking time to set these hearings. I know your schedule, and I know you just came from the Senate floor where you were working on an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill. So to move forward quickly, I have a full statement of some length, Mr. Chairman. I will ask that it be submitted in the record at this time. Senator DURENBERGER. It will be made a part of the record. Senator DECONCINI. I wish to thank you for taking prompt action on S. 904, the Water Resources Foundation Act of 1985. I think it is a very important first step. I certainly commend you and your staff for moving along in this effort. You know probably better than I,

through your role in the Environment and Public Works Committee, the demands that water legislation before the Congress this year will place on the State, local, and Federal governments to work together. The effectiveness and the enforcement of every environmental bill we write, including the Clean Water Act, is ultimately tied to or based on something we call "available information.'

For the most part, we don't know what available information is or will be at any time in the future. S. 904 is an attempt to deal with that particular dilemma.

It creates an independent research planning center and a national clearinghouse for water-related information. This is not an entirely new concept, and it has been recommended by a lot of people, including those we often ask for advice, the General Accounting Office and the Office of Technology Assessment.

Last year, we asked the Council on Environmental Quality to define and plan the proposed centers, and we have gotten a report back from CEQ with some good ideas and several options on both structure and costs. S. 904 is based on those recommendations and recommendations by the National Water Alliance, which we will hear from later today.

It also includes the suggestions and advice from people around the country. It creates a Water Research Foundation similar in purpose to the National Science Foundation, for both research and information sharing and sets up a program of extramural grants. Now for the question everyone is going to ask regarding this legislation: "Can we afford to spend more money?" Well, no, we obviously can't afford it. That is why we need this bill. The Federal Government will be spending billions of dollars less than needed for the wastewater treatment grants; it will be spending billions less than needed for the Superfund; it will be spending billions less than needed for the operation and maintenance of Federal dams and water projects; it will be spending billions less than needed for harbors and ports and waterways, and we are just beginning, as you know, to look at our needs for ground-water protection.

Although the Federal Government will be spending perhaps hundreds of billions less than anticipated, the need will still be there and ever growing. We are simply shifting the burden to State and local governments and to the private sector, and we don't have an information and research base to even begin to support all of these efforts.

The amount of fiscal responsibility we are retaining in S. 904 for the Federal Government is nothing compared to the fiscal burden we are shifting to the States.

The second big question which will be asked is: "Should the Foundation be established as an independent agency?" Based on the recommendations of the Council on Environmental Quality report, the National Water Alliance deliberations, and others, the answer is clearly "Yes!" An independent agency would best represent the research interests of all other Federal water entities and State efforts, as well as academic and private sector research.

Furthermore, an independent agency will give water research the central focus and structure it needs. The Water Research Foun

dation would crystalize and elevate the water research efforts so critical to the Nation's vital resources.

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for proceeding with this legislation. I am deeply grateful that you are a cosponsor of this bill.

Senator DURENBERGER. Great. Dennis, thank you very much for your initiative in this area, and I thank you. I appreciate it a lot. [Senator DeConcini's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR DENNIS DECONCINI

Mr. Chairman, you know, as I, that our nation's water problems are growing steadily upward on a yearly basis. Not a day goes by when there is not some news account reporting yet another water resource threat somewhere in this country. Whether the water problems are related to drought in the northeast, depletion of groundwater in the midwest or southwest, high water dangers in the Great Lakes, legal disputes over interstate water transfers and Indian claims, or water supply contamination, there is an infinite number of problems but a very finite source of practical answers.

The Congress and state governments respond to resource threats by attempting to craft immediate solutions to address specific problems. But, these solutions are only arrived at once communities have been confronted with a serious threat to the health of our nation's citizens or a threat to the viability of a resource. Instead of taking preventive action, we opt to spend billions of dollars at the Federal level to institute cleanup actions to cope with health risks once they occur. We are actually devoting a very small fraction of the total budget at the Federal level to advance research to expand our knowledge as a nation to better plan activities affecting our water resources. If our water resource problems continue to grow as I have no doubt they will, Mr. Chairman, I believe it is incumbent upon the Congress to take the best course of action now to curb these problems and formulate an effective plan for our nation's future. It seems to me that the best long-term solution to water resource problems is to expand our existing research capabilities and devote the type of resources necessary to overcome our existing knowledge shortfalls.

That is exactly the purpose of S. 904, the Water Research Foundation, Mr. Chairman. S. 904 is the product of studies conducted by the General Accounting Office, the Office of Technology Assessment, the National Research Council, and more recently by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The CEQ study was mandated by the Congress and completed by the Chesapeake Research Consortium through contract in September of 1984. The purpose of the CEQ study was to consider and define a National Center for Water Resources and to define and plan a National Clearinghouse to disseminate water-related information. S. 904 takes into account the findings of the CEQ study and public comments received and reviewed by the National Water Alliance (NWA), a private non-partisan organization, through a series of symposia held across the country on this very topic. The Executive Director of the National Water Alliance will be testifying today on the NWA's recommendations and findings.

The Council on Environmental Quality report presented a range of options on a Water Research Center and a National Clearinghouse for Information. It described the creation of an independent agency as the ideal option. Mr. Chairman, I think there is no hesitation in the minds of experts that we need to enhance our nation's water research efforts. There may be disagreement over the process we choose to accomplish that goal, but not over the need for additional research capabilities at every level. I would like to take this opportunity to explain why I believe an independent Federal agency is the best process. The Water Research Foundation created under my legislation is similar in structure to and was modelled after the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation was established not to dictate scientific policy but instead to support the basic research and related studies that were considered necessary by the scientific community, not the Government. The National Science Foundation is an independent agency which does not conduct its own in-house research but supports, financially and systematically, the innovations of independent institutions. It supplements Federal agency programs and lends cohesion to the many fragments of basic scientific study. Mr. Chairman, I think we could do the nation a great service by establishing a similar independent agency for water-related research. We need to better coordinate and more fully support our water research efforts. The Water Research Foundation will survey and supplement existing water research, determine water resource study needs, and help to determine national long-term research in the applied and basic studies in the legal, scien