House OKs Measure to Cut Arsenic in Water

In another rebuff of Bush administration environmental actions, the House voted Friday to require the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce by 80% the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water.

The provision, which passed 218 to 189, would halt an EPA reassessment of an arsenic standard approved during the waning days of the Clinton administration.

“Americans may disagree on a lot of things, but drinking arsenic isn’t one of them,” said Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), chief sponsor of the amendment. “When you turn on the kitchen sink, you ought to be able to drink what comes out without worrying about being poisoned.”

The proposal--offered as an amendment to the funding bill for the EPA and the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development departments--would lower the maximum acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 ppb. The Senate is expected to approve the measure, and, because it is attached to a broad spending bill, a presidential veto is considered unlikely.

A 1999 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that exposure to arsenic in drinking water can cause lung, bladder and skin cancer, and it recommended reducing the acceptable level. Its report said the current EPA standard “could easily” put 1% of the nation’s population at risk of developing cancer. That’s roughly 10,000 times the level of risk allowed for carcinogens in food. Arsenic also has been linked to liver and kidney cancers.

Arsenic levels exceeding 10 ppb are found in 3,000 water systems serving 13 million people, most of them in arid Western states, according to the EPA. Among them are hundreds of California water systems, and the cost of bringing those systems into compliance is estimated at $500 million, according to the Assn. of California Water Agencies.

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman was roundly criticized by environmentalists and congressional Democrats in March when she delayed implementation of the stricter arsenic standard to allow her agency to study anew where to set the level.

The agency has ordered a cost-benefit analysis and has asked the National Academy of Sciences to update its findings. The results of both studies are due in early fall.

Whitman has said the standard would wind up somewhere between 3 ppb and 20 ppb. The agency’s reassessment is scheduled to be completed and new regulations finalized by February.

“I am disappointed that the U.S. House of Representatives decided to prejudge the outcome of this issue,” Whitman said after the vote.

The House vote is another signal of congressional uneasiness with the Bush administration’s moves to roll back environmental safeguards. Nineteen Republicans voted for the amendment; six Democrats voted against it.

Public opinion polls show that President Bush is vulnerable on environmental issues, and members of Congress in districts considered politically moderate appear to be distancing themselves from his environmental actions. On the arsenic issue in particular, polls consistently have shown that a majority of Americans believe the Bush administration should have kept the stricter standards approved by the Clinton team.

Congressional Republicans accused Democrats of merely trying to score political points with the amendment.

“This has very little to do with the environment and everything to [do with] sticking a finger in the eye of the president,” said John Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.

Democrats insisted that their amendment was not about politics but about protecting Americans.

“The bottom line . . . is that the U.S. standard for arsenic should not be among the worst in the world,” said Rep. Bill Luther (D-Minn.).

The European Union and the World Health Organization have adopted a 10 ppb standard for arsenic in drinking water.

During the debate, congressional Republicans defended Whitman’s decision to review the arsenic standard.

“The sound science is simply not there to justify a change from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion,” said Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.). “The health benefits have not been shown to justify the enormous costs.”

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) said the tougher arsenic standard poses a public health hazard because it would force some rural water systems to close.

“We’ll go back to having untreated water with wells,” she said. “You shouldn’t take away our water until you have the right answer.”

Whitman has attempted to counter characterizations of the EPA reassessment as a rollback, saying she may propose an even tougher standard than that of her predecessor.

She repeatedly has stressed that there would be no change in the deadline for compliance with the standard: January 2006.

“It should be noted that this amendment will not put a standard in place any sooner than planned under EPA’s science-based approach,” she said Friday.

But congressional Democrats contend the Whitman review has caused unnecessary delays. If the Clinton administration’s standard had been allowed to take effect in March, as scheduled, water systems early next year would begin informing consumers about the presence of arsenic above safe levels in their drinking water. That would provide a strong incentive for local officials to move quickly in providing uncontaminated water, Democrats said.

The California Nevada Section of the American Water Works Assn. this week wrote Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to express support for the 10 ppb standard and to voice concerns that the delay caused by Whitman’s review was creating an “unrealistic timeline for compliance, which creates a handicap in meeting this critical public health standard.”

Five years ago, Congress required the Clinton administration to establish a new standard for arsenic in drinking water, but the standard was not finalized until last January.

Arsenic occurs naturally in some ground water, but mining, wood processing and other industries can increase concentrations through runoffs from their operations.

The arsenic vote is only one example of Congress reversing efforts by the Bush administration to weaken or alter environmental protections.

The Senate earlier this month voted to forbid the Interior Department from allowing drilling for oil and gas or mining for coal in national monuments.

The House voted to block oil and gas development in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, contributing to an administration decision to scale back future lease sales there. The House also voted to reinstate Clinton administration regulations to heighten environmental protections for hard-rock mining on public land.

Both houses rejected a Bush administration effort to wrest from the courts control over listing endangered and threatened species and designating habitats for their recovery.