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The 2016 platforms adopted by Democrats and Republicans at their political conventions in July conveyed dramatically differing priorities on the topics of infrastructure investment and environmental policy, with Democrats strongly endorsing new spending initiatives and Republicans advocating for a reduction of bureaucratic red tape.

The 2016 Republican Platform approved at that party’s convention recognized that “everyone agrees on the need for clean water” and critical infrastructure, but offered no proposals to strengthen investment in new or existing infrastructure programs.  Instead the document identified reducing burdensome regulations as a priority, calling to shift many environmental regulatory responsibilities to the states and to downgrade EPA to an “independent bipartisan commission … with structural safeguards against politicized science.”  These changes reflect the Republicans’ viewpoint that “year by year, the environment is improving,” and “our air and waterways are much healthier than they were a few decades ago” – thus lessening the need for strong federal oversight.

Not surprisingly the 2016 Democratic Platform embraced the opposite approach, calling for “major federal investments to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and put millions of Americans back to work.”  The Democratic Platform pledged to “build 21st century energy and water systems” and to “protect public health and safety by modernizing drinking and wastewater systems.”  The platform called for creating a national infrastructure bank, permanently authorizing Build America Bonds, and preserving tax-exempt municipal bond interest.

Democrats also used their platform to cite the Flint water crisis as a consequence of our nation’s failing infrastructure, and to label climate change as “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time” that must be met with a forceful response.  Republicans, on the other hand, highlighted EPA’s “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule as a threat that would extend “the government’s jurisdiction over navigable waters into the micro-management of puddles and ditches … and other privately-held property.”  To avoid this, the platform argued, the WOTUS proposal must be “invalidated,” and “state waters, watersheds, and groundwater must be the purview of the sovereign states.”

Regardless of which party wins the White House this fall, neither platform is likely to serve as a point-by-point policy to-do list.  But the platforms provide useful insight into each party’s governing philosophy and could preview their general approaches to water and environmental issues that are debated on Capitol Hill next year.