madam chairman , i appreciate the gentleman 's courtesy in permitting me to speak on behalf of this bill . 
the congressional consideration of the interior appropriations bill should be one of the highlights of this congressional session , as it touches on things that are near and dear to people 's hearts : clean water , vast open spaces , environmental protection , even opportunities to invest in the arts . 
sadly , what should be a positive expression of our values , our hopes , and our opportunities is instead in this bill a pattern of broken promises to our communities and to ourselves . 
unfortunately , the bill represents lost opportunities and is a symbol of the inability of this congress and this administration to match our priorities with those of our constituents and , most importantly , with the future of this country . 
i agree that the dramatic underfunding in terms of the budget allocation put the chairman and the ranking member and the staff in a hole to begin with , and my heart goes out to them ; but there is no reason that we , as a congress , can not use the billions of dollars that are set aside in a trust fund for the land and water conservation fund that have not been tapped as these resources are set aside expressly for this purpose of land conservation . 
in the year 2000 , as the gentleman from washington ( mr. dicks ) xz4001090 , my friend , mentioned , he was integral to fashioning an important compromise that gave flexibility to the committee on appropriations . 
we in congress made a commitment to the public and an agreement amongst ourselves to fund this responsibility . 
it was something that then-governor bush sounded as one of his pledges when he was running for the white house . 
the promises of candidate bush , president bush and of congress to our constituents and to ourselves is broken again by this budget . 
now , there are specific proposals to try and make an inadequate bill better . 
i will support and speak out strongly in support of working to stop the diluting of our commitment to clean water with an amendment to stop the administration 's efforts to weaken water quality protections , putting more sewage into our rivers and streams and drinking water . 
as a former commissioner of public works , i was responsible for the administration of sewage and water resource programs . 
i am not insensitive to the needs of many communities to occasionally blend water not completely treated . 
i recognize the need to do that in extreme weather events , an important tool for communities ; but it is not something that we should be doing routinely . 
we should instead be reducing our use of this tool wherever possible rather than increasing it . 
the epa rule weakening the current policy would actually penalize communities like mine and yours around the country that have worked to upgrade and improve their systems . 
in periods of extreme wet weather , blending will still often be necessary . 
it is legal under the current law , and it is not going to be changed with the amendment that will be offered . 
the anti-sewage dumping amendment would not change these existing blending standards , but they will prevent the epa from lowering them to authorize routine sewage dumping . 
now is not the time to move backwards . 
water bodies around the country are impaired . 
we need to make sure that we are not making it harder to ultimately meet these water quality standards . 
i urge joining me in supporting the amendment and working with the members of this committee to try to craft this bill in a way that meets the needs of america 's communities . 
