Political Quotes

“I want to thank Mr. DeFazio, Mrs. Napolitano, and all the leadership on both the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for putting this bill together. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk about the Energy and Commerce jurisdiction, which is initially the Safe Drinking Water Act. Our Nation's public drinking water system serves more than 300 million people, but aging and failing infrastructure threatens access to safe drinking water in communities large and small. {time} 1330 The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that our water systems will require $472 billion in infrastructure repairs over the next 20 years, but investment simply has not kept pace with the need. This bill reauthorizes the Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund for the first time in 20 years and provides significant new funding to State and local governments in dire need. The bill nearly doubles the authorized funding from $1 billion to almost $2 billion in 2021 and increases funding for public water system supervision grants to States. Important provisions in the bill ensure that this money gets to the communities that need it most by raising the cap on special assistance to disadvantaged communities under the State Revolving Fund and setting a floor for such assistance to guarantee help for those communities.…”