Last week, the Senate passed the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act (S. 914) by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 89 to 2 to authorize $35 billion for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects. The bill is being hailed by Republicans and Democrats alike as evidence that bipartisan compromise is possible on infrastructure initiatives; however, lawmakers in both parties have indicated that such spirit of deal-making could be fleeting. The Senate measure would reauthorize two critical Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs—the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund — which provide financial aid to localities’ drinking water systems and to state safe water programs, as well as loan financing and assistance for communities for a range of water infrastructure projects. Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein co-introduced an amendment to the bill that allows more California water recycling projects to receive EPA funding.
Attention now turns to the House, where the current proposal contains much more money overall for the aforementioned programs than the Senate legislation. Two House committees — the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee — have jurisdiction over drinking water and wastewater respectively and, according to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio (D-OR), are intent on moving the legislation (H.R. 1915) through the House “and getting it signed into law because clean water can’t wait.”