Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives on February 15 proposes to overhaul the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for the first time since the 1996 amendments. But the bill, sponsored by a group of House Democrats, faces numerous problematic provisions from the perspective of water sector groups and has no path forward as long as Republicans control the levers of power on Capitol Hill.
Sponsored by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 2017 (H.R. 1068) largely mirrors legislation that Pallone and other House Democrats first introduced last fall. That bill never received a hearing in Congress, as many of its SDWA reforms lack support from congressional Republicans and most water sector organizations, including AMWA.
H.R. 1068 would significantly expand EPA’s authority to establish drinking water regulations, directing EPA to establish primary drinking water regulations for any contaminant that “may have any adverse effect on the health of persons and which is known or anticipated to occur in public water systems.” The bill would eliminate existing requirements that EPA certify that a new drinking water regulation would present a “meaningful opportunity” for human health risk reduction. The bill would increase the frequency under which EPA must publish a new contaminant candidate list, and would give the agency nine months to promulgate a revised Lead and Copper Rule that requires, among other things, that “lead service lines are fully replaced on a set timetable and whenever contamination is detected.” Local water utilities would be responsible for replacing all lead service lines “controlled” by the utility “regardless of ownership.”
The bill would also overhaul the vulnerability assessments public water systems completed under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, requiring utilities to develop new assessments that consider threats from industrial activities near source waters, climate change impacts, and intentional acts against the utility or its distribution system. Utilities would have to update and resubmit the assessments to EPA every five years, along with an investigation of “alternative disinfection methods” and a determination of whether such alternatives could reduce threats to the utility. In effect, the new vulnerability assessments would serve as “inherently safer technology” reviews that utilities would repeat on an ongoing basis. Utilities would face new requirements to develop plans to mitigate identified threats, as well as “specific emergency response plans” to counter each.
A statement on the bill from Rep. Pallone said the measure “provides state and local governments the tools and resources they need to ensure that the public has access to clean drinking water.” And while no water utility organizations have endorsed the measure, the statement noted that it has won support from the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, Clean Water Action, the Environmental Working Group, and the Environmental Integrity Project.