Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - July 18, 2003
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July 18, 2003
House Environment Subcommittee Successfully Marks Up Funding Bill
The House Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. John J. Duncan (R-TN), successfully marked up the Water Quality Financing Act of 2003 (H.R. 1560). It is likely that the full Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee will take up the bill next week. H.R. 1560, as endorsed in the Subcommittee, would authorize $20 billion over five years for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) and an additional $1 billion in grants for wet weather projects. Representatives Sue Kelly (R-NY) and Ellen Tauscher’s (D-CA) plan to offer an amendment to add $5 billion in CWSRF funds to the bill at the full committee markup next week. AMSA has been supportive of the T&I Committee’s bipartisan effort to move forward with this legislation and believes H.R. 1560’s continued progress through the House marks a key step in the Association’s Wastewater Infrastructure Funding Task Force’s efforts to develop congressional support for a long-term, sustainable funding solution to the clean and safe water infrastructure funding gap. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Congressional Budget Office, the General Accounting Office and the Water Infrastructure Network all estimate the clean and safe water funding shortfall to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. AMSA encourages its public agency members to support the Kelly-Tauscher amendment (additional $5 billion) by contacting their members on the T&I Committee. The Association will continue to provide Updates and Alerts on this legislation as developments occur.House Appropriations Committee Includes Biosolids Partnership Funding
AMSA’s advocacy efforts enjoyed a key victory this week when the House VA-HUD and Independent Agencies Subcommittee included $1 million for the work of the National Biosolids Partnership in their fiscal year 2004 appropriations package. This funding is critical to the NBP – comprised of AMSA, the Water Environment Federation and EPA – which is seeking to increase the implementation of environmental management systems for biosolids at publicly owned treatment works nationwide and is beginning to graduate the first of its members who have passed through the EMS auditing process. In past years, the House’s inclusion of the funding provision has led to its ultimate passage via the appropriations process and the same is expected for FY 2004. AMSA congratulates its members’ consistent outreach effort that helped secure this important achievement.July Conference Features Launch of CleanWater Central Database
AMSA’s 2003 Summer Conference, Water Quality & The Wastewater Community: Emerging Pollutants, New Challenges, enjoyed over 260 attendees to discuss cutting edge technological issues and municipal case studies on a range of emerging pollutants and innovative water quality programs, as well as excellent committee discussions, all of which will be discussed in detail in the July edition of the Clean Water News. Today marked the end of the conference but also featured the launch the CleanWater Central database – a joint effort of AMSA and the Water Environment Research Foundation. Ralph Charlton, co-chair of AMSA’s Management and Operations Committee and Director of Fiscal Services at the Alexandria Sanitation Authority in Alexandria, Va., and Stephen Hayashi, AMSA Board member and General Manager of the Union Sanitary District in Union City, Calif., provided detailed overviews of their experiences from successful beta-tests of the database. These presentations demonstrated the CleanWater Central database’s unique data collection and information services, which include data from the 2002 Financial Survey and annual AMSA Index, and as a storage area for information vital to the wastewater treatment community. Cleanwater Central access information will be made available to AMSA members in the coming weeks via a Member Update.