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W E E K L Y  U P D A T E  February 18, 2020
 
In this Week's Issue:
New Legislation on U.S. Coast Guard's Icebreaking Mission
FY 2021 Budget Calls for Large Cuts to Domestic Programs
EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Proposal
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New Legislation Would Seek to Better Define U.S. Coast Guard's Ice Breaking Mission in the Great Lakes

U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Bob Gibbs (R-OH), and  Debbie Dingell (D-MI), introduced the Great Lakes Winter Commerce Act last week, legislation that w ould  legally specify the  U.S. Coast Guard 's (USCG)  responsibilities for  icebreaking on the Great Lakes to meet the reasonable demands of commerce during the ice season.  Currently, the USCG conducts its icebreaking mission based on  an  Exe cutive Order signed by President Franklin Del ano  Roosevelt almost 95 years ago.  More specifically, the Great Lakes Winter Commerce Act  would :  
  • Codify the USCG's Great Lakes icebreaking mission into law with its own performance standards.  
  •  Require the USCG to report to Congress on the operational costs based on meeting these new performance standards.  
  • Require the USCG to report annually to Congress on their icebreaking activities on the Great Lakes.  
  • Require the USCG to coordinate icebreaking operations with commercial vessel operators.  
  • Define ambiguous terms from the USCG's Great Lakes icebreaking mission including "open to navigation" and "reasonable demands of commerce."  
Administration's FY 2021 Budget Request Calls for Large Cuts to Key Domestic Programs

The Trump Administration released its fiscal year (FY) 2021 budget last week, which included severe cuts to key domestic programs. While the budget request would keep defense spending level in FY 2021, it would cut domestic accounts by about five percent to $590 billion as part of an attempt to lower federal spending. Among the key cuts include reducing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) funding by about 27 percent, the Department of Interior's funding by about 13 percent, and the Department of Energy's (DOE) funding by about eight percent from their FY 2020 levels. The budget request does keep the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding level to its FY 2020 allocation at $320 million and includes roughly $2 billion for the EPA's State Revolving Funds (both the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds).

However, while the Administration has proposed deep domestic cuts, leaders in both the House and Senate have indicated that they will adhere to the discretionary spending levels as they write the FY 2021 appropriations bills that were agreed to in last summer's bipartisan budget agreement that set FY 2020 and FY 2021 discretionary spending levels. That agreement includes $635 billion for domestic discretionary accounts and $741 billion for defense discretionary accounts, a $10 billion combined increase above current spending levels for domestic and defense spending. Because of the limited increase in funding, it is likely that a large portion of government funding will remain flat from FY 2020 to FY 2021.

For more information, please contact Matthew McKenna, Director of the Great Lakes Washington Program at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.
EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Proposal Ignores Lessons Learned from Flint and Newark Crises

The Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change of the Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing Tuesday February 11, 2020 entitled, "EPA's Lead and Copper Proposal: Failing to Protect Public Health." This hearing focused on the EPA's proposed revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule. Many of the comments given by witnesses centered on the proposal's attachment to cost/benefit analysis when confronted with lead infested drinking water rather than prioritizing the health of U.S residents. As a result, drinking water crises have been ignored simply due to misplaced efforts focusing on economic opportunities rather than effectively providing clean systems for public drinking water.

Witnesses present included Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the director for the Pediatric Public Health Initiative at Michigan State University. In her testimony, she maintained that there is no safe level of lead that does not adversely affect human well-being and as such a truly health-based lead action level would be 0 parts per billion of lead in water. In order to achieve Hanna-Attisha's goal, lead service lines carrying drinking water must be fully replaced (including sections on private property) which could take 33 years to come to fruition. Furthermore, the need to ban partial replacements of lead service pipes is even more crucial because lead service pipes in their entirety need to be replaced to fully eliminate the contaminated drinking water. A lot can be learned from the Flint water crisis in which the creation of a Flint Lead Exposure Registry was able to effectively identify eligible participants, collect registry data, monitor health, child development, ongoing lead exposure as well as improving service delivery to lead-exposed individuals and improve coordination and transparency with other community and federally funded programs in Flint.

Additional testimony from Cathy Tucker-Vogel, Public Water Supply Section Chief of the Kansas Department of Health & Environment, encouraged the need for a functioning data management system to properly enact policy changes designed to improve drinking water quality. Without this management system, officials can't track new requirements in proposed regulations that would improve drinking water issues based on overall public health, not whether the issue aligns with a favorable cost/benefit analysis.

While much of the testimony focused on ways in which the proposed revisions were ineffective or ignored real health needs, witnesses did point to a few aspects of the proposal which were improvements. Steve Estes-Smargiassi, testifying on behalf of the American Water Works Association, pointed to three areas of improvement including a requirement to develop lead service line inventories, to develop lead service line removal plans, and to inform homeowners of lead service lines on their property. However, outside of these three areas, most of the witnesses were in agreement that the proposed revision does not adequately strengthen the Lead and Copper Rule to the point that is needed. 

In sum, the new Lead and Copper proposal lacked several important initiatives that would drastically improve the water crises that have afflicted multiple communities across the country. Echoed by all attending witnesses, the panel agreed that the Lead and Copper proposal needs to be more streamlined with straight forward rules and procedures that can more easily protect public drinking water. Furthermore, there is need for increased federal funding towards water infrastructure and improved EPA and State implementation and enforcement activities, while promoting a more beneficial system of communication for water systems information.
 
Please contact Senior Policy Analyst, Chris Askew-Merwin, for more information.
This Week in Washington

There are no scheduled hearings for the U.S. Congress this week.

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