In contrast to the House’s drastic cuts, the Democratic-led Senate Appropriations Committee released its own draft FY14 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies spending bill on August 1 that would provide funding to the SRFs near past levels while modestly boosting total EPA spending by 1.25 percent.
The draft Senate bill would provide nearly $907 million to the DWSRF next year, while funding the CWSRF at $1.449 million – each within several million dollars of the programs’ pre-sequester FY13 appropriation. Overall, EPA would be funded at $8.48 billion.
The Senate measure includes nearly identical principal forgiveness and “Buy American” restrictions as the House bill, plus a new requirement that states set aside 10 percent of DWSRF dollars (and 20 percent of their CWSRF funding) for green infrastructure projects and water and energy efficiency improvements.
The Senate legislation would also establish a $15 million resiliency pilot program offering EPA funding for projects “to reduce flood damage risk and vulnerability or to enhance resiliency to rapid hydrologic change or a natural disaster” to water and wastewater infrastructure. Eligibility for the program would be rather narrow, with assistance available to up to three states that have high percentages of population residing in coastal ocean shoreline counties (based on findings by NOAA), state-wide unemployment rates above the national average, and vulnerability to the effects of hurricanes and sea level rise. Based on these criteria, the program appears targeted to benefit New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
There is no word yet on whether Senate appropriators will mark up the bill after Labor Day or if it will simply be used to gain negotiating leverage against the House.