Measure to Get Safer Drinking Water Stymied
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WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that legislation to help utilities deliver safer drinking water was dead for the year, another defeat for the Clinton Administration’s environmental agenda.
EPA Administrator Carol Browner lashed out at Republicans in Congress who she said blocked environmental bills and warned that the agency can beef up regulations and enforcement even without legislation.
“Just because the Republicans are bent on denying me the right to use legislation does not mean I can’t use regulation, enforcement, education, permitting,” she said.
The bill would have required the EPA to write regulations for cryptosporidium, the contaminant that sickened thousands and led to 100 deaths of people already weakened by illnesses last year in Milwaukee.
It also would have made available to water systems $1.3 billion to help them upgrade and meet water standards.
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) had placed legislative “holds” on the bill because it did not contain amendments they had sponsored that the Senate approved in a May vote.
The amendments applied to property value protections and requiring risk-assessments for major environmental regulations.
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