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dreds of thousands of people visiting them every year, while others 

 have no bathers. 



The legislation has built into it a standard that says if, in fact, 

 beaches are not used, then different protocols are applied. It also 

 has built in standards that take into account the risk, if the beach- 

 es are adjacent to, for example, a storm drain that overflows. Clear- 

 ly, this is a higher risk area than one that does not have a storm 

 drain or a wastewater treatment facility with problems. That is 

 built into the legislation. 



The legislation also has an escape valve. If a State can demon- 

 strate to the Environmental Protection Agency that they have in 

 place standards and protocols that assures the public is protected, 

 they can request an opt-out of the bill. 



Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I don't know how 

 much more flexibility we could provide to assure the States. Now, 

 some individuals indicate that it is going to be very expensive. 

 Well, I suppose if we based everything we did around here upon 

 whether it was going to cost additional moneys, we probably 

 wouldn't get anything accomplished. I think we would agree that 

 the amount we are talking about is very little. 



Senator Lautenberg has indicated that we have one of the best 

 testing programs in the country in New Jersey. Even with our 

 length of coastline,it costs us $200,000 a year. 



We are not talking about a lot of money. I don't think money is 

 the issue. How much are we talking about in costs to human 

 health? I remember just a few years ago, we had a rash of earaches 

 and other problems because we had polluted waters. 



One of the reasons why New Jersey has moved with such dis- 

 patch is because we have been there. We understand the difficul- 

 ties and we have tried to head off some of the public health prob- 

 lems. 



I think the recent Natural Resources Defense Council Beach 

 Closing Report clearly demonstrates that we have problems we 

 need to be addressing. It indicates that we had 726 occasions, in 22 

 coastal States last year, of problems, primarily attributable to 

 human and animal waste. 



Now, you are going to hear once again from the Environmental 

 Protection Agency that we haven't really developed the science to 

 deal with the problems.I want to tell you that I am very disap- 

 pointed by this response. 



"Give us some more time." They have been saying that since we 

 put into law back in 1986 some criteria to try to protect the public. 

 States have not moved forward on implementation of this criteria. 



We have no degree of uniformity throughout the country. In my 

 judgment, there is as much, if not more, of a need today as there 

 was when we first passed the bill out of this distinguished Subcom- 

 mittee just a few years ago. 



So I hope, Mr. Chairman, that this Committee will favorably con- 

 sider the legislation, and report it out at the earliest possible time, 

 so we can move it on to the other body before the close of the ses- 

 sion. To address Mr. Castle's question about what happened in the 

 Senate, unfortunately, the bill got caught in the closing weeks of 

 the session. As you know. Members of the Senate can put a hold on 



