According to a multiple congressional staffers, Republicans and Democrats in the House are working behind the scenes to draft a big infrastructure bill; however, that bill may only tackle transportation — and may not include water provisions.
Many in the House and Senate are determined to pass a narrow, transportation-focused bill because a key provision of the Highway Trust Fund expires next year and they are hesitant to risk a lapse by broadening the bill to include water issues, Jacqueline Cohen, the chief environmental counsel on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said.
“I think it is entirely possible that we come out of this Congress without an infrastructure package,” Cohen told a March 25 meeting of state drinking water regulators in Alexandria, Va. “I also think it’s entirely possible that we come out of this Congress with just a highway fix.”
Similarly, Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee staff have also suggested that Senate lawmakers in the upper chamber are especially reluctant to do anything that could jeopardize passing a transportation bill before the Highway Trust Fund’s deadline at the end of the FY 2020. Mike Danylak, a Republican spokesman with the Senate environment committee, said “significant, bipartisan highway infrastructure legislation” is a priority for the committee’s chairman, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo). (Bloomberg BNA, 3/25/19)
In January, WEF and 90 other organizations sent a letter to Congress urging the funding of water infrastructure. The coalition of national, state, and local organizations asked Congress to include funding and financing for drinking water, wastewater, water reuse, and stormwater infrastructure in any infrastructure package considered during the 116th Congress.
If the infrastructure package is narrowed to cover only transportation issues, that means lawmakers who want to address lead, PFAS, and other water problems will have to pass stand-alone water infrastructure legislation.
