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NACWA Urges Public Agencies to Schedule Visits with Their Members of Congress During Recess; Provides Key Talking Points

NACWA members are encouraged to schedule visits with their members of Congress while they are on recess and back in their home District’s during the month of August.  These visits provide an excellent opportunity to educate your Representatives and Senators on the water quality-related issues that impact their communities and the support local wastewater treatment utilities need to effectively deal with these challenges.  Congressional visits also provide an opportunity to raise key policy issues that NACWA and the wastewater treatment community are advocating for back in Washington.

Below is a list of issues and talking points that NACWA is focused on in Washington on your behalf and that you can raise with your Representatives or Senators when you meet with them.  These issues include:  affordability and funding, green infrastructure, and energy-related issues and, these are most effectively raised within the context of your own priorities and local data that can support the talking points below.

ISSUE:  Affordability and Funding:  Urge support for H.R. 3202, the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act, and for requiring EPA to revise Guidance on Financial Capability for CSO Abatement

Background:  NACWA is working to identify co-sponsors for H.R. 3202 which would establish a long-term, sustainable funding source of up to $10 billion annually for the State Revolving Fund programs. Forty Representatives have signed on to the measure. As we are advocating for more funding to local communities to help pay for wastewater treatment infrastructure, NACWA is also urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a broader approach to determining what communities can afford to pay to deal with aging infrastructure, overflow control, and other costly Clean Water Act requirements.

Funding:

• The recent EPA Clean Watersheds Needs Survey Shows that the nation requires $298.1 billion in additional clean water investments above the investments being made by local, state and federal governments.

• H.R. 3202 would raise over $10 million annually to help provide funding to communities to help close this gap;

• H.R. 3202 relies on a broad base of funding sources including: fees on water-based bottle beverages, personal care and pharmaceuticals, flushable products, and a portion of the Corporate Environmental Income Tax;

• Communities shoulder over ninety-five percent of the burden of meeting the standards established under the Clean Water Act for providing clean water to communities – the Federal government must become a partner in meeting these obligations.

Affordability:

• Wet weather discharges including sanitary and combined sewer overflows, continue to be top enforcement priorities for EPA and the government has set specific goals for addressing these wet weather compliance issues;

• We understand that more work is needed in this area, but believe that EPA must recognize and be responsive to wastewater utilities’ environmental stewardship and fiduciary responsibilities to its ratepayers, especially against the backdrop of the current economic turmoil;

• It is time for the EPA to review and update its 1997 guidance document, Combined Sewer Overflows – Guidance for Financial Capability Assessment and Schedule Development.  Other stakeholders, including the Environmental Finance Advisory Board (EFAB) and the U.S. Conference of Mayors are also recommending changes to EPA’s current policies and guidance on affordability/financial capability.

Green Infrastructure:  Urge support for H.R. 4202 and S. 3561, Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act.

Background:  Green infrastructure approaches are receiving more attention by communities as a better and more cost-effective way of managing stormwater.  To encourage greater use of these techniques, NACWA has partnered with several environmental organizations to advocate for the adoption of a federal program designed to provide research, technical assistance, and implementation assistance.  Legislation introduced in the House and Senate would establish a green infrastructure program at the EPA.

• Green infrastructure is increasingly being seen across the nation as a cost-efficient strategy for protecting and restoring water resources and simultaneously achieving other environmental, community, and economic goals including providing green jobs for engineers, architects, construction workers, plumbers, maintenance workers, and many others.

• The legislation does three things:

1. Establish Centers of Excellence to develop and disseminate green infrastructure technologies;
2. Authorize a new federal grants program to support planning, implementation, and monitoring of green infrastructure projects and associated green jobs;
3. and Require EPA to create a program to promote green infrastructure and integrate it into existing regulatory programs.

• The House bill is sponsored by Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and has 43 co-sponsors, the Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

• If fully funded, this bill could provide thousands of green jobs for communities across the country.

Climate and Energy:  Urge support for biogas and bio-solids to qualify for the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) as part of the Senate’s energy legislation

Background: As the Senate takes up energy legislation, we are urging Senators to support Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow’s effort to qualify biogas and solids produced in the wastewater treatment process as renewable biomass for the purpose of a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), thereby allowing wastewater treatment utilities that recover energy on-site to receive credit for doing so from their local electric utility.

• The energy potential contained in wastewater and bio-solids exceeds by ten times the energy used to treat it, and can potentially meet up to 12% of the national electricity demand;

• Researchers have measured the energy content of raw wastewater samples and determined that it exceeds the electricity requirements for treatment by a factor of 9.3 to 1. That means that domestic wastewater, which has organic matter with embedded energy content, contains almost ten times the energy needed to treat it, and

• As wastewater utilities move toward energy recovery, they simultaneously reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and generate revenue to support their treatment services.

To help you in your outreach and discussions with members, you can download related documents for each of these issues by clicking the issue below:

Funding

Affordability

Green Infrastructure

Energy