§277g — Title 22 Foreign Relations and Intercourse | U.S. Code

Summary

The Secretary of State, using the U.S. Commissioner for the International Boundary and Water Commission (the U.S. official who handles border water matters), can make agreements with Mexico’s foreign ministry to fix Rio Grande pollution from raw or poorly treated sewage coming from border cities such as Ciudad Acuna, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Del Rio, Laredo, and Hidalgo, Texas. Those agreements must give recommendations to both governments to protect people’s health and welfare. They must say what facilities to build, operate, and maintain in each country; estimate costs; set an initial formula for how the United States and Mexico will share those costs; provide a way to review and change that cost split every five years (and say the first formula is not a permanent precedent); and give start and finish dates for construction.

Title 22, §277g

Foreign Relations and Intercourse — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of State, acting through the United States Commissioner, International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico (hereafter in sections 277g to 277g–3 of this title referred to as the “Commissioner”), is authorized to conclude agreements with the appropriate representative of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Mexico for the purpose of correcting the international problem of pollution of the Rio Grande caused by discharge of raw and inadequately treated sewage and other wastes into such river from the border cities including but not limited to Ciudad Acuna, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa, Mexico, and Del Rio, Laredo, and Hidalgo, Texas.

(b)Agreements concluded under subsection (a) should consist of recommendations to the Governments of the United States and Mexico of measures to protect the health and welfare of persons along the Rio Grande from the effects of pollution, including—

(1)facilities that should be constructed, operated, and maintained in each country;

(2)estimates of the cost of plans, construction, operation, and maintenance of the facilities referred to in paragraph (1);

(3)formulas for the initial division between the United States and Mexico of the cost of plans, constructions, operation, and maintenance of the facilities referred to in paragraph (1);

(4)a method for review and adjustment of the formulas referred to in paragraph (3) at intervals of five years which recognizes that such initial formulas should not be used as a precedent in their subsequent review and adjustment; and

(5)dates for the beginning and completion of construction of the facilities referred to in paragraph (1).

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Short Title

Pub. L. 100–465, § 1, Oct. 3, 1988, 102 Stat. 2272, provided that: “This Act [enacting this section and sections 277g–1 to 277g–3 of this title] may be cited as the ‘Rio Grande Pollution Correction Act of 1987’.”

§277g Agreements to Correct Pollution of Rio Grande

Summary

Title 22, §277g

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Short Title

Citations & Metadata