Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021--Continued

Floor Speech

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Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in strong support of the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021. I want to thank Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Capito, full committee Chairman Carper, Chairman Duckworth, and their staffs for their hard work and cooperation on this bill.

While many issues divide this Senate, clean water is not one of them. As ranking member of the Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife Subcommittee under which drinking water and wastewater jurisdiction lies, I am proud to see the work our committee has done to bring this bill to the floor today, and I especially want to thank Senator Duckworth for all of her efforts to serve our communities by shepherding this bill through the Senate.

On May 17th, our committee and subcommittee held a hearing to examine the challenges facing drinking water and wastewater infrastructure throughout the Nation. We heard from witnesses that many obstacles remain in America's water quality. High among those obstacles is the lagging funding related to an aging infrastructure. The primary mechanism for financing water infrastructure is from State and local sources, including the collection of user fees, but funding has not kept pace with the growing need to address an aging system. Only 20 percent of very large utilities and 10 percent of small utilities report that they will be able to provide full-cost service in 5 years. I am proud to be a part of the team that has come together to find a solution to these problems.

While working on this issue, I learned something that might surprise a lot of Americans: The majority of our Nation's drinking water and wastewater utilities are small. Over 90 percent of the country's roughly 50,000 community water systems serve populations fewer than 10,000 people. Roughly 80 percent of America's 17,000 wastewater utilities serve populations fewer than 10,000 people. Rural and small communities like many found in my State of Wyoming have greater difficulty affording public wastewater service due to low population density and lack of economies of scale. Rural communities also have lower median household incomes and often have higher rates of poverty, only compounding the challenge. The mandates and requirements given under the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act can be burdensome on these small and rural communities. This bill reauthorizes a number of programs that will provide technical assistance, funding, research, and expertise for these small communities. The Circuit Rider Program, for example, has long been among our Nation's most successful public- private partnerships. The Wyoming Association of Rural Water Systems and organizations like it across the country are doing yeomen's work in delivering for our rural communities.

The Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act unanimously passed our committee by a vote of 21 to 0. Similar legislation worked on by then-Chairman Barrasso and Ranking Member Carper likewise passed without any opposition last Congress.

Mr. President, I have the unique privilege of being the only Senator to sit on all three committees of jurisdiction over transportation and infrastructure. All three committees are hard at work considering the recent infrastructure plan put forward by President Biden. Let me give a brief history of the bipartisan nature of this topic.

In 2019, the EPW Committee under my fellow Senator from Wyoming John Barrasso, passed a 5-year highway funding bill unanimously out of committee. In 2018, President Trump signed the bipartisan America's Water Infrastructure Act into law. In 2016, President Obama signed the bipartisan Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act into law. In 2015 we had two bipartisan transportation bills pass into law, and in 2014 we had another bipartisan water resources bill become law.

President Biden mentioned last night that infrastructure is historically a bipartisan issue. He applauded my Republican colleagues for putting forward a good infrastructure plan of our own just last week. Our Republican bill is based on ideas that have garnered bipartisan support in the past, which makes it a perfect foundation upon which to build an infrastructure plan that could pass into law. I urge President Biden and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to remember this as we move to an infrastructure bill.

I am proud of the work that my colleagues and I did on today's Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act. I would like to thank my colleagues on the EPW Committee for their work, and I urge all Senators to support it

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