The House
Environment Affairs Committee voted 7-6 to send the legislation authored
by its chairman, Rep. David Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, to the full House
for consideration.
Wolkins, who
has sponsored several similar bills over the years, said he's hopeful
this measure will pass the House and won't stall in the Senate, where
previous versions have never been brought to a vote.
Wolkins said
he's been pleased with Indiana's environmental regulations for more than
a decade under Republican governors but believes his bill is needed in
the event that future state regulators, presumably under Democratic
governors, "overreach" and impose tough environmental rules, which he
said could stifle economic development.
Hoosier
Environmental Council staff attorney Kim Ferraro told the panel that the
legislation is unnecessary because existing state law has checks and
balances that ensure the Indiana Department of Environmental Management
and the state's Environmental Rules Board "do not overreach and impose
regulations that cause undue, unnecessary" burdens on industry.
Nineteen states
currently have similar laws on the books, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures' website.
Ferraro said
Indiana needs to retain its ability to adopt tougher standards than the
federal government uses to protect its environment and the public
health, depending on what environmental issues might arise here.
She said that
if Michigan had a similar law, it would be restricted in how it could
react to the situation in Flint, where a 2014 water supply switch has
left residents unable to drink tap water and tests have shown high lead
levels in some children's blood.
"In that
situation, federal law is inadequate and was inadequate to stop that
situation and the state's laws did not go above and beyond what federal
law required," Ferraro said.
She cited,
among other issues, that the federal Safe Drinking Water Act states that
if a water utility switches water sources, it does not have to perform
new water-testing until its "next regularly scheduled testing time,
which is once every three years."
Wolkins said he
felt Ferraro's argument was misleading. He said his understanding was
that Flint's problem was caused by its switch to using the Flint River
as the city's drinking water source without adding a chemical to control
corrosion.