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One of the top orders of business this fall in the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee will be to begin the process of developing the next iteration of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), biennial legislation that in recent years has been increasingly used as a vehicle for advancing drinking water and wastewater policy measures.

Though WRDA bills have historically focused on authorizing water resource activities of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, beginning with the 2014 version of the bill Congress has used the measure to carry other water infrastructure policy items as well. That 2014 bill authorized EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program, and the 2016 version of the bill followed by authorizing a handful of new EPA programs targeting lead in drinking water. The 2018 WRDA included short reauthorizations of WIFIA and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and there is speculation on Capitol Hill that the upcoming 2020 WRDA bill could again reauthorize those programs, as well as a number of water policy provisions.

While EPW Committee staff are expected to begin to piece together a WRDA proposal this fall, the bill itself is unlikely to debut until well into 2020. Meanwhile, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is also expected to draft its own WRDA proposal, and eventually the House and Senate will have to work out an agreement on a final version of the legislation.