7-27-01, WASHINGTON (AP) House Democrats succeeded Friday in blocking the Bush administration from weakening or delaying tough new standards on arsenic levels in drinking water announced in the final hours of the Clinton presidency.

Democrats, renewing their attacks on the administration's environmental policies, said the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to reconsider the Clinton standards put millions of Americans at risk. "The bottom line," said Rep. Bill Luther, D-Minn., "is that the U.S. standard for arsenic should not be among the worst in the world."

Republicans accused Democrats of exaggerations not based on sound science.

The House, in a 218-189 vote, approved a measure by Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., and other Democrats that would prevent the EPA from weakening the drinking water standard set by the Clinton administration in January. Nineteen Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the proposal, an amendment to a $112.7 billion bill to fund veterans, housing, environment and other federal programs in fiscal 2002.

The Clinton administration set the standard at no more than 10 parts per billion of arsenic in drinking water, compared to the current 50 ppb level set in 1942.

The National Academy of Sciences in 1999 released a report calling for stricter standards, saying arsenic is a potent human carcinogen linked to lung, bladder and skin cancer.

In March the EPA proposed that the Clinton standards be put on hold pending further study. It also put off until February the date when the new standard will become effective, leaving in place a 2006 target date for compliance.

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman has not ruled out the 10 ppb standard, but says more research is needed to determine whether that tough standard justifies the estimated annual cost of $200 million it will take to implement. The EPA earlier this month said it would accept public comment on a 20 ppb standard.

The Bush White House, said Bonior, is saying that "it will ignore 25 years of research, cast aside extensive expert testimony, override official recommendations and reject the clear will of the American people."

But Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., said Democrats were resorting to "heated rhetoric, wild exaggerations and sound-bite politics" to support "a very arbitrary decision based on questionable studies."

The 10 ppb level was strongly opposed by Western lawmakers who said arsenic occurs naturally in their water supplies, has never been shown to be harmful at low levels and that meeting the standards would be economically ruinous to small communities.

"We don't know what the health effects are of arsenic at very low levels," said Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M. "We do know that if you set that standard so low, it will force rural water systems to close and we'll go back to having untreated water with wells." She said there were 150 rural water systems in her state where the naturally occurring level of arsenic was above 10 ppb.

But Democrats pointed out that the 10 ppb level has been adopted by the World Health Organization and the European Union. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, said the total cancer risk goes from one in 500 at 10 ppb to one in 250 at 20 ppb.