Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - November 16, 2001
Click Here
to see previous Fax Alerts
November 16, 2001
House, Senate Committees Pass Water Security R&D Bills
The work of the members of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Advisory Group (CIP), made up of water and wastewater associations working on security initiatives, including AMSA, has made great legislative strides. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Sen. James Jeffords (I-VT) introduced bills on October 31, which provide significant funding for research and development of wastewater and drinking water infrastructure security measures. The House bill, H.R. 3178, passed swiftly through the House Science Committee Nov. 15, and the Senate version, S. 1593, was endorsed by the Environment and Public Works Committee on November 8. The House bill would provide $12 million a year for five years (2002 - 2006), while the Senate version would provide an additional year of funding.At a press conference following passage of the House bill through Committee, Jerry Johnson, General Manager of the DC Water & Sewer Authority, thanked Rep. Boehlert on behalf of AMSA for his leadership on this security measure and on water infrastructure issues in general. Rep. Boehlert and Sen. Jeffords are pushing passage of these bills this year, an initiative AMSA will continue to fully support.
AMSA to Continue Advocacy Efforts on Stimulus Funding
AMSA is continuing its aggressive advocacy on behalf of water infrastructure construction funding in the stimulus package as members continue to inform the Association that wastewater infrastructure construction projects are ready-to-go and could help ignite a stagnant economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Despite some discussion on the Hill that water infrastructure may not make it into the final version of the stimulus bill, there is still strong Democratic support for funding, and AMSA remains in regular contact with key Congressional officials to ensure such funding is included. While the Senate has decided to delay further discussion of the stimulus package until after the Thanksgiving break, AMSA fully intends to continue its efforts at full throttle to ensure that wastewater infrastructure funding becomes part of the stimulus package.
EPA Issues Key Guidance to States on Nutrient Criteria
In line with AMSA requests and formal comments, EPA issued a November 14 memorandum titled Development and Adoption of Nutrient Criteria into Water Quality Standards. The document provides additional guidance to states and authorized tribes on developing nutrient criteria plans, adopting nutrient criteria, the flexibility available, and EPA’s expectations for the timeframes to develop a plan and adopt nutrient criteria into water quality standards. AMSA has consistently supported this type of guidance but has performed only an initial review of the document and will make more specific information available to members in the next Regulatory Update. The guidance can be downloaded off AMSA’s web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/11-16-01nutrientsmemo.pdf.
- Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no FaxAlert next week. Happy Thanksgiving!