The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a massive “Water Resources Reform and Development Act” (WRRDA) by a vote of 417-3 last week, authorizing a host of navigation, flood control and environmental restoration projects while setting the stage for lawmakers to sit down with their Senate counterparts to hammer out a final version of the bill.
Highlights of WRRDA (which was introduced in September as H.R. 3080) include authorizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to carry out 23 water resources projects totaling $3.1 billion, limiting project feasibility studies to three years, requiring the Secretary of the Army to take the lead in facilitating the environmental review process, and sunsetting new authorizations after seven years – if construction has not begun – to prevent future project backlogs.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) praised the bipartisan nature of the bill and set a goal of passing new WRRDA legislation every two years. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) also applauded the House vote and expressed an intention to move forward with a House-Senate conference committee to develop a final bill “as soon as possible.” Senator Boxer will serve as the chair of the conference committee.
The House’s approval of WRRDA comes roughly five months after the U.S. Senate approved its own version of water resources legislation as S. 601. Unlike the House measure, the Senate bill included a “Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act” (WIFIA) pilot program at EPA that would offer low-interest loans to major water and wastewater infrastructure projects expected to cost more than $20 million apiece. AMWA supports WIFIA because it would offer a new cost-effective financing mechanism for large water and wastewater infrastructure projects whose needs are often unmet by the existing State Revolving Fund programs.
Although WIFIA was left out of the House bill, it enjoys significant support in both chambers of Congress, and the pilot program could still be included in the final WRRDA conference report. Once lawmakers are formally named to the WRRDA conference committee AMWA will contact them to advocate for WIFIA’s inclusion in the final bill.