A pair of bills introduced in the House and Senate on October 23 would establish a new mechanism to help low-income households pay their drinking water and wastewater bills.
The Low-Income Water Customer Assistance Program Act (H.R. 4832/S. 2687) would create two EPA pilot programs – one for wastewater utilities, and one for drinking water – through which communities could apply for funding assistance that would support the establishment or continuation of local affordability programs that aid low-income customers. EPA would be allowed to offer a defined number of pilot grants to drinking water and wastewater utilities, and over the course of the pilots the agency would examine and report on the results of the grant awards. Eventually, sponsors say the pilots could serve as a model for a more comprehensive federal water and wastewater affordability program.
The drinking water program would be open to water systems of all sizes, but a degree of preference would be given to communities that have experienced severe water rate increases in recent years, which jointly operate a wastewater system that is subject to a Clean Water Act consent decree, or which have developed their own equivalent low-income assistance program.
Last year AMWA worked with congressional staff to develop the original version of the legislation. The bill’s sponsors hope to attach the new bill to larger water resources legislation that Congress is expected to pass next year.