NACWA April 2006 Legislative Update

This edition of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies’ Legislative Update, current through April 3, 2006, provides information on the activities of the 109th Congress of interest to the nation’s publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). For more detailed information regarding NACWA activities related to specific legislation, click on the web links in selected news items, or contact NACWA’s Lee Garrigan at 202/833-4655 or lgarrigan@nacwa.org.

NACWA advocates on behalf of its members before Congress. You can find individual bills through NACWA’s Bill Tracker (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legupdate/leg_tracker.cfm), which provides a direct link to congressional websites where bill texts and summaries are posted. You can find NACWA letters, statements, alerts, updates and related documents under Legislative (http://www.nacwa.org/private/leg_index.cfm) in the Member Pipeline section of the NACWA website.

CLEAN WATER FUNDING

NACWA Recruiting House Cosponsors for Clean Water Trust Fund Bill
NACWA and member organizations of the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN) met March 31 to discuss the various associations’ plans to recruit cosponsors on to the Clean Water Trust Act of 2005 (H.R. 4560). NACWA and other WIN organizations are gearing up for their annual Washington, D.C., spring 2006 meetings and legislative fly-ins, where they will generate congressional support for the bill. H.R. 4560, introduced in December 2005 by Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, establishes a federal clean water trust fund that would provide approximately $7.5 billion annually from fiscal year (FY) 2006 through FY 2010. The five-year, $38 billion legislation would create a sustainable, reliable source of federal funding to supplement existing local revenue for communities to address wastewater infrastructure needs. A copy of H.R. 4560 is available on NACWA’s Bill Tracker (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legupdate/leg_tracker.cfm).

To assist members in contacting their Representatives, NACWA recently distributed Legislative Alert 06-04 (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legalrts/la06-4.cfm), which provides instructions, a ‘Sample Letter’ and a fact sheet on H.R. 4560. The sample letter also can be accessed via NACWA’s Write Congress Now feature on the right hand side of the Association’s homepage (www.nacwa.org). NACWA encourages its members to ask their Representatives to support H.R. 4560 and to meet with their Members of Congress during the 2006 NACWA/WEF National Clean Water Policy Forum scheduled for May 1-3 in Washington, DC. To register, go to the homepage of NACWA’s website (http://www.nacwa.org) and click on the icon “Register Now.” For assistance with scheduling meetings with your Representative, please contact Lee Garrigan, (202) 833-4655 or lgarrigan@nacwa.org.

SECURITY

Wastewater Security Legislation To Be Introduced Following Release of GAO Report
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has completed work on a second report on wastewater treatment plant security and has sent the results to the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, which is expected to release it to the public at the end of April. EPW Committee Chairman, James M. Inhofe (R-OK) requested the study to assess the state of security at the nation’s clean water utilities and gather data on how they have assessed and addressed potential vulnerabilities since September 11, 2001. In response to the GAO report, Chairman Inhofe will propose new legislation that will draw significantly on a bill that passed the Committee in 2003, the Wastewater Treatment Works Security Act of 2003 (S. 1039) (http://www.nacwa.org/private/leg_outreach03.cfm).

EPW Committee staff, in a March meeting with NACWA, reported that the Chairman hopes to introduce a wastewater security bill simultaneously with the public release of the GAO report. NACWA has invited EPW Chairman Inhofe to discuss the bill at the upcoming NACWA/WEF 2006 National Clean Water Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., May 1—3, 2006. NACWA meeting attendees also will hear from EPW Committee staff, who will discuss the findings of the GAO report and the new legislation during a panel discussion as part of the NACWA/WEF 2006 National Clean Water Policy Forum.

DHS Budget Supports Chemical Security Legislation
The proposed FY 2007 budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) includes a request for $10 million to establish a new office to administer a chemical site security program. The establishment of the new office closely tracks bipartisan legislation introduced late last year that would require DHS to regulate the security of thousands of chemical facilities nationwide. The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 (S. 2145) (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legupdate/leg_tracker.cfm#2) would provide broad new authority to DHS to establish risk-based criteria to determine which chemical facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack and to establish security standards for those facilities. Chemical facilities would be required to conduct vulnerability assessments and create site security and emergency response plans based on their specific vulnerabilities, subject to approval by the Secretary of DHS. Facilities that fail to comply with the security standards would be subject to fines and penalties. NACWA sought comments from its members on the bill via Legislative Alert 06-02 (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legalrts/la06-2.cfm).

In testimony March 2, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HGA) Committee that the Bush Administration would like to see legislation passed this year that would give DHS authority to oversee security at chemical facilities.

NACWA Members Could Be Covered by Chemical Security Bill
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGA) Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ranking Member Joe Lieberman (D-CT) introduced S. 2145 following a year of negotiations with DHS and the chemical industry. As a starting point, the bill directs DHS to consider all facilities on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program (EPA RMP) list under Clean Air Act §112(r). The list includes more than 15,000 facilities, including some wastewater treatment plants, which store, produce, or use greater than threshold quantities of hazardous chemicals. The bill also gives DHS the authority to add facilities not on the EPA RMP list. All listed facilities would be assigned by DHS to a security tier based on risk criteria. However, just because a facility is on the EPA RMP list does not mean DHS will include it on the list of covered facilities.
In an early March meeting, Senator Collins’ staff told NACWA that “DHS does not intend to capture wastewater facilities” in the legislation. This opinion was reinforced in a March Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on chemical facility security (http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-150), in a DHS comment that stated, “It did not intend wastewater treatment facilities to be incorporated in the list of top facilities.” However, in a late March meeting, both Collins’ and Lieberman’s staff conceded to NACWA that the current bill could be problematic for a small number of wastewater utilities that could be covered by the bill’s current definition. NACWA used the comments on S. 2145 it received from member POTWs in response to Legislative Alert 06-02 (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legalrts/la06-2.cfm) in the recent meetings with HSGA Committee staff. NACWA and other water and wastewater stakeholder groups are working together to prepare a letter to the HSGA Committee that outlines the impacts of S. 2145 on both public wastewater utilities and on community water systems.

Sen. Collins’ staff expects S. 2145 to be marked up in the HSGA Committee this year. Similar legislation in the House is expected to be released in the near future. NACWA will continue to work with the Committee to address the POTW community’s concerns.

Senate Democrats Introduce Tougher Chemical Security Bill
The Senate delegations from New Jersey and Illinois have introduced a chemical security bill that is significantly more stringent than the bipartisan Collins-Lieberman Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 (S. 2145) (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legupdate/leg_tracker.cfm). Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) are the authors and sponsors of the Chemical Security and Safety Act of 2006 (S. 2486) (http://www.nacwa.org/private/legreg/legupdate/leg_tracker.cfm). Cosponsoring the legislation are Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Richard Durbin (D-IL), John F. Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Biden (D-DE). Upon introduction of the bill, Senator Obama pointed to chlorine as a dangerous industrial chemical that could compromise homeland security, making some NACWA facilities eligible to be covered under the new proposal. S. 2486 would require that every chemical facility in the country adopt inherently safer technologies and allow states to enact tougher chemical security standards than Federal law allows. Last year, the State of New Jersey began to require that chemical facilities adopt inherently safer technologies if they can do so.

The Chairman of the Senate EPW Committee, James M. Inhofe (R-OK), immediately criticized the partisan bill saying it would impose unnecessary restrictions on chemical plants. The bill has little chance of being brought before the committee for discussion but will likely be used by the Senators to try to gain concessions during this year’s anticipated debate of the Collins-Lieberman bill in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and on the Senate floor.

FISCAL YEAR 2007 BUDGET

Congress Criticizes EPA’s CWSRF Cuts
Bipartisan criticism escalated in March as Members of Congress from both sides of the Capitol continued their vocal opposition to the fiscal year (FY) 2007 budget for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The proposal, unveiled by the White House earlier this year, proposes another round of cuts to the clean water state revolving fund (CWSRF) program, fulfilling the Administration’s promise to end federal capitalization of the program in FY 2011. The nearly $200 million budget cut would reduce the nation’s primary infrastructure program for water quality projects from $886.8 million in the current fiscal year to $687.6 million. Federal funding for the CWSRF has been slashed nearly 50 percent since the $1.35 billion annual appropriation it received up until FY 2004.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson returns to the Senate in early April to provide testimony on the FY 2007 budget before the Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. Earlier this year, Johnson testified in hearings at the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies and the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee to defend the Administration’s proposal but was widely criticized at both hearings. In the House, Administrator Johnson said wastewater infrastructure needs are so large that EPA’s budget cannot address them. Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin Grumbles added that the $688 million request is on target to fund the CWSRF to revolve at $3.4 billion a year by 2011. According to hearing reports, Grumbles then acknowledged that even though the CWSRF will revolve at that level, a large funding gap will continue to exist. The $300 billion financing gap will likely worsen as the federal government continues to disinvest in clean water public works projects.

In the Senate, EPW Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-OK) sent a March 7 letter to the leadership of the Senate Budget Committee asking for more money for both the CWSRF and the Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Loan Fund (DWSRF). Inhofe first expressed concern during the February EPW Committee hearing, stating that the “cuts will not be sustained throughout the process” and that “Congress would be justified in restoring many of the cuts you proposed. There is a nationwide crisis and need for more water infrastructure money. It is clear from the cuts you have proposed that the Administration does not fully understand this crisis.”

Other Committee members had similar objections to the clean water program cut. The proposed budget also would delete $280 million that Congress added to the FY 2006 budget for more than 330 specific earmarked projects in local communities. The budget proposes to increase funding for the drinking water SRF by $4 million over FY 2006, increasing the proposed budget to $841.5 million. Also on the chopping block is the Wastewater Operator Training program which EPA proposed to zero out in FY 2007. The program received nearly $1.2 million in FY 2006.

The new round of cuts to clean water programs, as proposed in the FY 2007 budget of the EPA, and the anticipated end of the federal contribution to the CWSRF in 2011, will increase fiscal pressures on wastewater utilities’ budgets to both comply with an increasing number of regulations and to repair and replace aging plants and collection systems. At yet another hearing on EPA’s proposed FY 2007 budget on March 8 in the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, Chairman John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) stated, “the consequences of failing to invest are severe. Without upgrades to wastewater infrastructure, not only will we fail to make progress in water quality, but as our population increases, we will lose the gains we have made over the past 30 years.” Rep. Duncan introduced in December 2005 the Clean Water Trust Act of 2005 (H.R. 4560). NACWA continues to point to the federal funding decline and the spending gap as the primary reasons to establish a sustainable, reliable, long-term trust fund to finance wastewater treatment projects (http://www.nacwa.org/advocacy/releases/030206.cfm).

Appropriations Process to Start after Spring Recess
The House and Senate Budget Committees are expected in April to mark up their budget resolutions which will set funding allocations for agencies. The allocations then are used by the appropriations subcommittee chairs to draft their appropriations bills. Despite the vocal opposition to the clean water funding cuts, congressional appropriations staffs of the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees on Interior and Environment continue to assert that expected budget allocations will not contain enough money to beef up the CWRSF. Also at increased risk during the appropriations process this year are hundreds of local wastewater, water and stormwater projects that are added annually into the budget by individual lawmakers. Congress leaves Washington for the spring recess on April 7 and returns to work on Capitol Hill on April 24.

Support the NBP Funding Request – Write Congress Now on NACWA’s Website
A letter (http://www.nacwa.org/private/leg_outreach.cfm) requesting additional funds for the National Biosolids Partnership (NBP), signed by NACWA members during the NACWA 2006 Winter Conference in Palm Desert, California, was sent in February to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies. The letter supports at least $1 million for the NBP’s environmental management system (EMS) for biosolids program in EPA’s FY 2007 budget.

Additionally, individual agencies that have Members of Congress on the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees received a Special Legislative Alert (http://www.nacwa.org/private/leg_outreach.cfm) in which they were asked to write a letter urging their Members to request that $1 million for the NBP be included in EPA’s budget for FY 2007. A sample letter that NACWA members can personalize and send to their Representative or Senator also is available from Write Congress Now, which is located on the home page of NACWA’s website (www.nacwa.org).