Dueling Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bills considered in the House and Senate each include some funding to help communities improve water and wastewater infrastructure for improving resiliency from future flooding and extreme weather events.
A $60.4-billion bill approved by the Senate in late December would have directed $700 million to the Clean Water SRFs and $110 million to the Drinking Water SRFs of the ten states (plus the District of Columbia) that received federal disaster declarations related to Sandy. Each state would receive at least two percent of the total SRF funds and would be required to use the dollars on projects “to reduce flood damage risk and vulnerability or to enhance resiliency to rapid hydrologic change or a natural disaster.” States would distribute at least 50 percent of their share of funds as grants or negative interest loans.
House of Representatives leadership chose to not take up the Senate’s bill before the end of 2012 and instead announced plans to consider a similar package of relief bills by January 15. One version of the bill published last week included a total of $600 million for water infrastructure resiliency projects (with $500 million reserved for the CWSRF and the remaining $100 million for the DWSRF), but the money would only be available to communities in New York and New Jersey for projects at water facilities that were impacted by Sandy. The House proposal would direct states to use between 20 and 30 percent of their dollars for grants and negative interest loans.