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NACWA is pleased to announce that it has finalized a working draft of its regulatory prioritization legislation as a part of its Money Matters . . . Smarter Investment to Advance Clean Water™ campaign.  This legislation is the product of significant work by the Money Matters Task Force and a number of key stakeholder groups, including the Association of State & Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA), the American Public Works Association (APWA), and the Water Environment Federation (WEF), that participated in an April facilitated session.  NACWA also held a Money Matters Summit in March and had another in-depth facilitated discussion among members at its May National Environmental Policy Forum.

The legislation sets forth a process under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to prioritize the growing array of regulations.  The legislation takes care to ensure that there can be no backsliding under the CWA and advances an approach that allows municipalities to apply to their State regulatory agency with a compliance schedule priority plan based on one or more changed circumstances set forth in the legislation. Each of these changed circumstances is sufficient to trigger the opportunity for the community wastewater treatment agency to submit an application. These changed circumstances include:  1) new or additional regulatory, permitting or other enforceable requirements; 2) shifts in the size of a community’s population; 3) changes to a community’s financial capability; 4) new scientific data, modeling or other predictive calculations; and 4) new technological advances or innovations; and 5) innovative treatment approaches, including but not limited to green infrastructure, adaptive management and watershed management innovations.

With this legislation now ready to be shared with Members of Congress, NACWA is in the process of setting up key Capitol Hill meetings to ensure introduction of the bill in both the House and Senate this summer.   As the Association pursues introduction of the legislation, NACWA will be in contact with key public agency members seeking their support in reaching out to their Members of Congress as potential sponsors.  Meanwhile, the Association is also gauging the interest of the previously mentioned groups and additional organizations in supporting the legislation.  

It is also important to note that as the Association pursues national legislation, there are several States that have passed affordability/financial capability legislation, such as in Kentucky and, most recently, in Ohio.  Missouri has also introduced similar legislation and is working on passage of it.  NACWA believes these efforts are critical and is working via its Clean Water Exchange network of state and regional groups representing municipal clean water agencies to promote such state legislative efforts. These bills can be downloaded at NACWA’s Money Matters webpage.

To help further explain each part of the legislation, NACWA has produced a section-by-section analysis .  This document will assist public agencies in conveying the goal of the Money Matters legislation to your Congressional delegation.  

NACWA will continue to update its members on our progress as it occurs.  We will also be discussing the legislation at key NACWA committee meetings next week during our 2011 Summer Conference in Chicago.  If you have any questions or concerns about the legislation or the section-by-section analysis, please contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .