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             WEEKLY UPDATE May 20, 2014  

In This Issue
Vice President Biden Visits Mississippi Riverfront
NEMWI Summarizes House-Senate Water Resources Conference Report
Webinar: Successful Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund Administration
EPA Announces Environmental Job Training Grantees: Seven in NEMW Region



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Vice President Biden Visits Mississippi Riverfront      

Mayor Slay of St. Louis, MO (left) welcomes Vice President Biden (center) to the St. Louis Mississippi Riverfront with Interior Secretary Jewell (right) to recognize federal investment within the Mississippi River region.
On May 13, Vice President Biden and Interior Secretary Jewell visited the Mississippi River at the St. Louis waterfront Arch grounds (pictured above). The Vice President and Secretary Jewell made a stop along the waterway to highlight the importance of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Discretionary (TIGER) Grants. Congress has allocated $4.1 billion to the TIGER program since 2009.  According to the Department of Transportation, 18 TIGER Grants have been awarded to Mississippi River-oriented projects. The largest concentration of TIGER Grant projects resides within the Northeast-Midwest Institute's member-state area. The Vice President's visit comes just four months before expiration of the current transportation bill in September. The Vice President commented on the importance of federal seed investment and said that the TIGER program's purpose is to provide a start to projects that use other sources of funding for completion.

For more information, contact Colin Wellenkamp, Director, MS River Cities and Towns Initiative at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

  

NEMWI Summarizes House-Senate Water Resources  

Conference Report  


The House-Senate Conference Committee negotiators for the Water Resources Reform and Development Act released a conference agreement on Thursday, May 15, 2014. The Senate passed its version of the bill in May 2013, and the House in October 2013. The agreement between the two legislative chambers comes after nearly six months of negotiations. The House expects to vote on the agreement on Tuesday, May 20, 2014, with a Senate vote expected to follow by the end of the week. Highlights of the Conference bill include an expedited process for consideration of interim WRDA project authorization bills, which can speed up project starts.  It also  includes reform and set-asides of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund intended to direct more of the fees to harbor maintenance projects and spread them to smaller, emerging harbors. The agreement also: designates the Great Lakes ports as a navigation system; improves forecasting of droughts and floods on the Mississippi River; requires additional studies and protections against invasive species, including Asian carp; and mandates study and recommendations on ways to reduce severe storm damage, like that experienced during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. An NEMWI summary and side-by-side comparison of the final report and Chamber bills provides further details. Prior to release of the Conference Report, the NEMWI side-by-side of the two bills was featured in Politico.

For more information, contact Danielle Chesky, Director, Great Lakes Washington Program at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

 

Webinar: Successful Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund Administration

 

The National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals (NALGEP) will host a webinar on Wednesday, May 28 at 1pm (EDT) on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grants. These grants provide funding for a grant recipient to capitalize a revolving loan fund and to provide subgrants to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites. When loans are repaid, the loan amount is returned into the fund and re-lent to other borrowers, providing an ongoing source of capital within a community. According to NALGEP, many communities have had the right mix of marketing, developer interest, and administrative tenacity to use the RLF to vault forward in brownfields redevelopment. The webinar will feature RLF project managers in Milwaukee, WI, Cuyahoga County, OH, and western North Carolina; the speakers will describe key aspects of their RLFs, including setup, marketing, leveraging additional financing, and specific redevelopment projects. To register for the webinar, click  here.

For more information, contact Colleen Cain, Sr. Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. 

 

 

EPA Announces Environmental Job Training Grantees: Seven in  

NEMW Region

 

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the selection of 18 grantees to receive approximately $3.6 million collectively through the Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) program. The grants fund training programs in local nonprofit organizations, community colleges, cities, states, tribes, and counties that provide unemployed and under-employed individuals with the comprehensive skills and certifications needed to enter full-time careers in the environmental field. The funding also supports job placement and recruitment activities.  Each grantee will develop its own training curriculum. Graduates of the program learn to participate in activities such as: recycling, brownfields assessment and cleanup, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, emergency response, oil spill cleanup, solar installation, and Superfund site remediation in their respective communities. Seven of the 18 grantees are located in the NEMW region:  

 

* City of Milwaukee, WI
* St. Nicks Alliance; Brooklyn, NY
* Civic Works; Baltimore, MD
* Energy Coordinating Agency; Philadelphia, PA
* Northstar Center for Human Development; Hartford, CT
* City of Detroit, MI
* The Workplace, Inc.; Bridgeport, CT

More information on environmental workforce development and job training grants is available here.

For more information, contact Colleen Cain, Sr. Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

 


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