Statement of Christy Leavitt, Environment America Clean Water AdvocateWe applaud the U.S. House of Representatives for voting to protect swimmers and surfers at America’s beaches by passing the Beach Protection Act of 2007 (H.R. 2537).
With beach season just around the corner, the House has taken an important step forward in ensuring that long summer days at the beach are safe.
The Beach Protection Act, introduced by Representatives Frank Pallone (NJ) and Tim Bishop (NY), reauthorizes and improves the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000. The BEACH Act has expanded water quality monitoring and public notification programs at beaches across the country.
The Beach Protection Act builds on this progress by increasing the amount of BEACH Act grant money available to states each year, expanding the program to include tracking of beach water pollution sources, and requiring U.S. EPA to validate rapid testing methods that identify water pollution in a matter of hours rather than the one or two days that most current tests take. Rapid testing is critical to alerting the public promptly when beach water is unsafe.
This victory comes on the heels of two other recent environmental wins in the House. In the last two weeks, the House voted to double the size of two marine sanctuaries off the coast of California (H.R. 1187) and voted to permanently protect the more than 20 million acre National Landscape Conservation System (H.R. 2016).
We applaud House leadership for taking decisive action to protect the environment and call on the Senate to do the same. To protect the health of beachgoers across America, the Senate should quickly take action on the Beach Protection Act.
