Stronger Clean Water Bill Passed by House, 340 to 83

The House Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation designed to combat water pollution, renewing and strengthening existing federal standards and authorizing $21 billion over the next nine years to help communities build sewage treatment plants.

In approving the measure by a vote of 340 to 83, the House ignored Reagan Administration complaints that the measure “would reverse four years of fiscal restraint” and narrowly defeated an amendment that would have frozen the 1986 authorization at the 1985 appropriation level, as called for in the House budget resolution.

The measure, like similar legislation passed last month by the Senate, renews pollution control standards introduced in the 1972 Clean Water Act, the premier law governing pollution of American lakes and waterways.

$3-Billion Difference

A conference committee will attempt to resolve discrepancies between the two bills, including a $3-billion difference in authorization for treatment plant construction grants. The Senate authorized $18 billion over the next nine years.

The Administration, which had in its budget request proposed phasing out treatment plant construction funding by 1990, threatened to veto both measures before they were passed, and said Tuesday in a statement released by the Office of Management and Budget that the House version represents a “return to business as usual in federal spending.”

Proponents of the freeze amendment contended that the measure exceeded the amount authorized by the House in its budget resolution by about $2 billion and called on their colleagues to exercise “discipline and restraint.”

Huge Deficits Cited

“At a time of huge budget deficits . . . we can’t continue to spend more on federal programs, no matter what priority we place on those programs,” said Rep. Timothy J. Penny (D-Minn.), a co-sponsor of the amendment.

But Rep. Robert A. Roe (D-N.J.), the author of the Water Quality Renewal Act, said in an emotional response: “Is water pollution and water supply in the nation the same in your minds as (the) military? As food stamps? . . . We’re talking fundamentally about the absolute health of the people of the country.” The amendment was defeated, 219 to 207.

Earlier, the House had rejected, 257 to 162, an amendment by Rep. Arlan Stangeland (R-Minn.) that would have allowed communities to operate their own sewage pretreatment programs. Critics contended that the alteration would have lessened environmental protection by allowing industries to send untreated waste to plants unable to handle it.