Garrett's grudge against drinking water

Update: This bill's passage has major implications for North Jersey. Both The Record and The Herald News carried stories about Representative Bill Pascrell Jr.'s legislation, which was approved among the New Jersey House Delegation, 12 to Garrett.

I've been working on another project this evening and decided to take a break to see what went on in the House today. One bill, and Garrett's vote on it, stood out. He was the only NJ House member to vote against The Water Quality Investment Act of 2007. Basically, it provides grant money to states and towns to help clean up their water by avoiding sewer overrun into streams and such. This was a big problem where I lived in Michigan, where we'd have significant rain and the sewage treatment facilities would overrun and dump raw sewage in the rivers and lakes where people swam and would catch fish for dinner. Fun stuff, huh?

Anyway, Garrett voted against providing money to help fix problems like these, that usual have enormous costs that communities can't afford to fix on their own. At first I was surprised, however, I should have seen this coming, as Garrett has a long running feud with working sanitation and clean water for people to drink and get food from.

Rep. Garrett was one of 14 representatives to vote against "The Goals and Ideas of World Water Day." Here's what was resolved:

(1) supports the goals and ideals of World Water Day;
(2) recognizes the importance of conserving and managing water resources for sustainable development, including environmental integrity and the eradication of
poverty and hunger, and human health and overall quality of life in the United States and across the globe; and
(3) encourages the people of the United States to observe World Water Day with appropriate recognition, ceremonies, activities, and programs to demonstrate the importance of water and water conservation to human kind.

And Garrett voted no.

The other big one was Garrett's vote against the "Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005." It's a bit longer, but lays out the issues and consequences that a lack of clean drinking water has around the world. Basically, it resolves that we should focus our foreign aid on ensuring the availability of working sewers and clean drinking water to prevent, among other things, regional wars and children dying every 15 seconds from preventable disease. Garrett had a few more friends on this one, he was one of 34 to vote against it.

I don't know what Garrett has against providing clean water and working sanitation. Personally, I find his stance on these immoral and somewhat appalling.