Congress should fund the President’s full $52.7 million budget request for the Regional Climate Data and Information program in FY17, AMWA and other water sector organizations wrote to Senate appropriators last week.
Housed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the program supports research and analysis that helps communities plan for extreme events such as drought, wildfires, heat waves and flooding. It also manages the activities of the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program, which supports targeted research that helps communities understand their region’s unique climate-related challenges.
Congress provided the Regional Climate Data and Information program with $38 million in the current fiscal year. The President’s proposal to increase this sum to $52.7 million next year includes a boost from $5.872 million to $9.784 million for RISA.
The letter, authored by AMWA, the American Water Works Association, the Water Utility Climate Alliance and the Water Research Foundation, said the President’s proposed funding increase would help utilities “continue to provide critical water services in spite of the effects of extreme weather and climate impacts, and the resulting hydrologic change that can negatively affect our water supply sources.”