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AMERICA'S FAILING WATER INFRASTRUCTURE MUST BE REPLACED
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. O'Halleran). The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib) for 5 minutes.
Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, we can't build back better without replacing every inch of lead service line in our country.
In too many of our communities from Flint to Benton Harbor to the cities of Wayne and Hamtramck and across the State of Michigan and our Nation, the water is poisoned with lead.
We have an opportunity now to change it, with a bold and clear investment to replace every single lead-contaminated service line in our Nation.
Experts have already estimated that we need $60 billion to replace every service lead pipeline in America. But we know the Senate proposal--which was negotiated without a shred of input from frontline communities or their representatives--only devotes $15 billion. That is just simply not enough.
People are drinking water with lead now, and we know which communities lose out when there isn't enough money to go around. They are communities that look like mine. It is environmental justice neighborhoods.
We must--we must--do more, and we already have secured another $30 billion in Build Back Better to get us closer to our goal. Again, a clear way to bring us all together is making sure that we all have access to clean water.
There are 2.65 million service lines in Michigan, and over 12 percent of those lines are contaminated with lead. To replace these lead pipes in Michigan alone, it would cost $1.65 billion.
Again, I ask everyone, how can we build back better when children are being poisoned?
Benton Harbor in Michigan needs $11.4 million to provide clean water to its residents. We just discovered new lead-contaminated issues in the cities of Wayne and Hamtramck in Michigan. That is why it is critical that the Federal Government, our government, steps up with bold and aggressive investment.
In 2018 a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council revealed that between 2015 and 2018 about 5.5 million Americans in communities around the Nation got their water from a system that exceeded the EPA's lead action level of 15 parts per billion. That is just the stuff we know about. We know that there is more.
The threat of lead-contaminated water is a longstanding one that has overwhelmingly impacted communities like mine, low-income communities, communities of color, for decades. And yet we have not done anything meaningful for a very long time to really, truly remove lead service lines.
We continue waking up to stories about children being poisoned with lead and cities handing out bottled water because we have failed to invest in our water infrastructure. Folks are being forced to drink, bathe, cook, and wash dishes with water that is literally contaminated with lead because politicians have put their well-being on the back burner.
On top of it all, the leaky, outdated infrastructure also means many of those same people can't even afford to pay for water that is being poisoned. Literally, they are paying money for water that is contaminated with lead. Some people in Washington like to pretend to worry about how we are going to pay for lead pipe replacement, but what we really can't afford is another moment of inaction.
Clean, affordable drinking water is a human right. There are Flints and Benton Harbors and cities of Wayne and Hamtramck in every part of this country, communities right now where children are drinking water that can alter the course of their lives forever.
So please join me in replacing lead service lines across the country. It is a moral imperative. We need to immediately pass the full $45 billion in the Senate proposal as well as the Build Back Better proposal. Again, there is no building back without it.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 188
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