The House passed legislation Thursday reauthorizing $13.8 billion over five years in wastewater treatment grants and loans, after rejecting a Republican amendment to strip language requiring contractors to pay prevailing wages.
The legislation (HR 1262) also included five water quality bills that separately passed the House in the last Congress. The total cost of the legislation is about $20 billion.
While the bill, which passed 317-101, enjoyed solid bipartisan support, there was vigorous debate over an amendment by Connie Mack, R-Fla., that would have removed a provision applying the Davis-Bacon Act (PL 88-349) to projects receiving federal funding.
The amendment was defeated, 140-284, with 35 Republicans joining Democrats in opposition.
Davis-Bacon-a Depression-era law that enjoys union backing and is a lightning rod for Republican opposition-requires contractors on federal projects to pay prevailing wages. The water bill would extend that requirement to state and local projects receiving grants or loans through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.
"Davis-Bacon requirements ensure that wages are artificially set by bureaucrats, not by free market forces," Mack said.
He called the provision in the water bill "an unprecedented expansion of Davis-Bacon" and said the 18 states with no prevailing wages "will see increased costs of public construction, thereby reducing the volume of projects and jobs."
Republicans also argued the small businesses would be hurt.
Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., countered that the prevailing wage is not set nationally but vary by state. He said the language restores a Davis-Bacon requirement that was part of the law until the last authorization of the clean water fund (PL 100-4) expired in 1994.
"At a time of high unemployment, desperate need across this country, an economy that needs people with income and ability to spend and to buy and to stimulate the economy-why would you tell folks to work for less?" Oberstar said. "Why would you tell people to work for just at or below or around the minimum wage."
Michigan Republican Candice S. Miller, a Davis-Bacon supporter, noted that the prevailing wage requirement was lifted for reconstruction projects following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
She said the result was that jobs were given to "immigrant labor from other areas" including illegal aliens. Miller said the work was "so bad" that she and some other Republicans asked President George W. Bush to reinstate Davis-Bacon.
'Buy American' Provision
The underlying bill would reauthorize the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which provides low-interest loans and grants to local communities for construction of wastewater treatment facilities, for the first time in 15 years.
The measure would provide $300 million each year through fiscal 2014 in state management assistance and $100 million in annual grants to nonprofit organizations to provide technical and management assistance in improving wastewater treatment systems in rural areas, small municipalities and tribal communities.
The measure includes a "Buy American" provision that would require most steel, iron and manufactured goods used in projects financed by the revolving fund to be produced in the United States.
As amended, the five-year authorization also includes $2.5 billion in grants for projects designed to prevent sewer overflows, $150 million a year to address sediment contamination in the Great Lakes watershed and $50 million annually to provide grants for pilot programs testing such alternative methods for enhancing water supplies as wastewater reclamation and reuse.
The House adopted by voice vote an amendment by Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., that would prohibit funds in the program from being earmarked by lawmakers. Oberstar said the bill includes no earmarks and that projects financed by the revolving fund have always been selected on merit.
An amendment by Ohio Democrat Steve Driehaus, adopted by voice vote, would boost the authorized funding for a sewer overflows grant program to $2.5 billion from $1.8 billion.
The House also adopted by voice vote amendments that would require the EPA to develop an updated management plan for restoring Chesapeake Bay and to convene an interagency task force to develop recommendations for disposing of unused pharmaceuticals.
A manager's amendment offered by Oberstar would authorize $100 million annually for a watershed pilot projects program and would set aside 20 percent of combined storm sewer and sanitary sewer grant money for communities implementing environmentally friendly water infrastructure projects.
House members expressed frustration that clean water legislation stalled in the Senate in the last Congress. In combining five bills that passed the House last year, members said they were hoping to make it easier for the Senate to clear the legislation.
Source: Michael Teitelbaum, CQ Today Online News