OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Amendment No. 1471, as Modified, to Amendment No. 1460

Floor Speech

Date: April 29, 2021
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Infrastructure

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, this amendment No. 1471 is our amendment, and it would modernize the formula by which this money is distributed.

This formula is 34 years old. It privileges a handful of States over the vast majority--I think the number is 15 over the other 35. And it is not just me saying it; the EPA issued a report that stated that the current formula does not meet the wastewater needs of all of the States and recommended that it be updated regularly. Notably, from the EPA's report, it says that the EPA does not know how the current allotment formula was developed. It says:

The weighting and factors that were used to establish the formula for the original allotment are not known.

My home State of Florida is one of many that are disadvantaged under the current formula, and the result has been obvious over the years.

I think most of my colleagues would agree that distributing funds-- let alone $14.4 billion--to States without rhyme or reason is not beneficial and isn't fair.

It is not just States, by the way. This amendment, if passed, would secure more equitable allotments to Native American Tribes and territories.

Unfortunately, I made--in our drafting of this amendment, there was a small technical error in which, instead of stating that it should be 0.025 in the distribution for Native American Tribes, it says .0025.

1471 with the changes that are at the desk so that the right number is on there.

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I just want to state that we are not changing the formula. There is an extra zero, and it is literally a typo, the kind of typo people make every single day in the Senate. Instead of saying ``.025,'' it says ``.0025.'' Everyone knows what it was intended to do. That is the way we talked about it. That has been objected to. The Senate is now a place where you cannot amend a typo by unanimous consent. That is unbelievable. It is unreal. I, frankly, find it unacceptable.

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