The drinking water regulatory item that has probably had the most stakeholder engagement over the past two months is EPA’s retrospective review of Consumer Confidence Reports (CCRs). To start stakeholder discussions, EPA held a January 4 conference call with AMWA and several other associations to discuss its goals and schedule for the review. This was followed on February 23 by a “listening session” during which the conversation was opened to the full public stakeholder community. The listening session provided background on the potential CCR changes and teed up questions for comment and discussion in an online forum (accessible at http://ccrretrospectivereview.ideascale.com) through March 9. All comments and discussions will be considered as part of the public comment record EPA will use as it progresses with its review process.
The online discussion is open to any comments or discussion related to CCRs, however, EPA released a set of “discussion questions” (seewww.amwa.net/cs/members_only/regulatory_committee_notes), divided into subsets focused on different stakeholder groups and outlining the issues EPA feels are most pertinent to the review. Though EPA has outlined several topics for discussion, the main focus of EPA’s review will be an evaluation of alternative delivery methods for the CCR with the end goal of issuing policy guidance addressing alternative delivery methods in early 2013. Other issues that will undergo review include Tier 3 public notification limitations, state certification requirements, use of whole numbers and required health effects language. For these (and any other) additional topics, EPA intends to develop a review summary and make recommendations for further action “as Agency resources allow.”
The costs for delivering paper copies of CCRs through the mail is a growing concern in today’s tight budgetary environment, and there is a potential for significant savings from electronic delivery of CCRs. However, the scale of any savings is heavily dependent on the details. On several occasions, EPA has mentioned that it considers the “push” aspect of CCR delivery (i.e., proactively getting the reports into consumers hands) to be a very important aspect of the current CCR. Within this construct, proactive emailing of reports has been put forth as an option for electronic delivery. But such an alternative would require a significant effort to collect and maintain a large email database compared to a more passive approach such as providing a URL link to the CCR as part of customers’ billing statements. It is unclear if EPA can be convinced to move toward the latter approach which, many have argued, is the most practical and effective way to give the public access to CCRs in light of current trends in technology and patterns of information consumption.
As the CCR retrospective review proceeds within EPA, AMWA also continues to back legislation in the House and Senate (H.R. 1340/S. 1578) that would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to allow electronic CCR communications. Staff on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have told AMWA that edits would be necessary if the legislation is to move forward, but they continue to express interest in working with the water sector on the issue. Additional discussion of AMWA’s legislative efforts on CCRs can be found in the January/February Congressional Report.