Congress should convene hearings and develop legislation to reform the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in response to a “national crisis” on drinking water quality, two top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to their Republican counterparts on June 30.
Signed by House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Environment and the Economy Subcommittee ranking member Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), the letter could represent the House Democrats’ opening argument in favor of SDWA reform. Noting that the law has not seen significant updates in the 20 years since passage of the 1996 amendments, the letter argues that changes are needed to address “lead exposure in communities and schools, drinking water facility security, the need to repair and replace deteriorating drinking water infrastructure,” and to respond to “some of the most noteworthy failures of our drinking water protection system in decades.”
“Drinking water systems across the country are facing crumbling infrastructure, water main breaks, source water contamination, shut-downs, as well as drought and other threats from climate change,” Pallone and Tonko wrote. “Consumers … are facing exposure to lead, perchlorate, Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), and other chemicals that are not regulated, or effectively regulated, under the Act.”
The letter stops short of detailing specific policy recommendations to address these issues, but previous Democratic-backed proposals have sought to expedite EPA’s regulation of drinking water contaminants, allow individuals to sue in response to the presence of contaminants that may pose an imminent and substantial health threat, permit state or federal regulators to mandate the replacement of drinking water disinfection chemicals with “inherently safer technologies” (IST) and dramatically increase funding for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.