Wayne Allard: “the ability of communities to provide its citizens with clean, safe drinking water is one of the most important public…”

“the ability of communities to provide its citizens with clean, safe drinking water is one of the most important public utility services any municipality can offer. I support many of the goals of the Clean Water Act and believe that the United States has made great progress in eliminating dangerous substances from drinking water. It has helped make our national drinking water infrastructure more reliable and more effective. Unfortunately, many of the small, financially strapped, rural communities in Colorado cannot meet the obligations of the Clean Water Act or the regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency because of increasingly onerous unfunded Federal drinking water mandates, As a result, communities in my home State are faced with two options: increase taxes and utility rates to exorbitant levels or end municipal water delivery. Neither option is acceptable. That is why I am introducing the Rural Colorado Water Infrastructure Act, a bill that will allow Colorado to participate in a program known as Section 595 of the Water Resources Development Act. My legislation authorizes $50 million for design and construction assistance to non- Federal interests in the most desperate Colorado communities for publicly owned water related environmental infrastructure and resource protection and development projects. The Rural Colorado Water Infrastructure Act will allow local communities to enter into cost share agreements with the U.S.…”