[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 72 (Tuesday, April 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2210-S2211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The clerk will report the nomination.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of Colin Hackett Kahl, of 
California, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
  The Senator from Maryland.


        Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, shortly, we are going to be taking up S. 
914, the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act, and I would 
urge my colleagues to approve this legislation promptly.
  The Environment and Public Works Committee reported this legislation 
by a unanimous vote. We don't get too many unanimous votes here on 
substantive, important legislation, and we were able to get that 
because this bill is truly bipartisan.
  I want to congratulate the leadership of the Environment and Public 
Works Committee, Chairman Carper, for the management of the committee 
to bring us together, and Senator Capito, the ranking Republican 
member. The two of them set the climate for us to work together to 
bring out a drinking water and wastewater infrastructure bill. I also 
want to compliment my counterpart in regards to the Subcommittee on 
Infrastructure, Senator Cramer, who is the ranking member--I am the 
chair--and Senator Duckworth, who is the chair of the Water 
Subcommittee, and Senator Lummis. All six of us worked together so that 
this Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act really does 
represent the views of all the Members of the Senate, and it is a bill 
that is desperately needed by our communities.
  Water infrastructure is critically important to our Nation. It is 
important for drinking water. It is important for how we treat our 
waste, wastewater. The needs are tremendous. The American Society of 
Civil Engineers gives us a report card grade of D in 2021. The gaps are 
billions of dollars a year necessary to bring our water infrastructure 
up to standard.
  This legislation will move us in the right direction. It authorizes 
$35 billion of water infrastructure, which is desperately needed in our 
communities. It will allow us to upgrade aging infrastructure, address 
the threat of climate

[[Page S2211]]

change, invest in new technologies, and help marginal communities in 
dealing with these needs.
  COVID-19 has made the challenges even more dramatic for our 
communities. Water utilities have incurred additional costs. I think 
that is quite obvious. They had to deal with the protective equipment 
for their workers to deal with COVID-19. They had workers who were out 
as a result of COVID-19. They had to deal with changing the way they 
operated their business. There was a demand for greater water during 
COVID-19, just the washing of our hands frequently. It requires us to 
have access to more clean water.
  The ability of our customers to pay their bills was challenged during 
COVID-19. As we know, American families' incomes were very stressed and 
are still stressed as a result of COVID-19. The gap between the ability 
of the public support for water infrastructure and what ratepayers are 
asked to pay is getting larger and larger. We haven't made the money 
available from the public side for water infrastructure, and to put 
more pressure on the rate when customers are already having a difficult 
time paying their bills is not a viable option. That makes S. 914 even 
more urgent.
  I want to talk about a couple provisions that are included in S. 914 
that are bipartisan that I worked on that I think are extremely 
important parts of this legislation.
  One, working with Senator Wicker, we have in this bill a pilot 
program that will establish 40 grants around the Nation so that we can 
establish programs to help low-income households. By way of comparison, 
this is similar to the LIHEAP program that we use to help our low-
income families deal with their utility bills for heating their homes 
and air-conditioning their homes. This will provide similar help for 
low-income families in dealing with the price of their water bills.
  Having been through Maryland and some of our centers, I can tell you 
that there are many communities where individuals literally cannot 
afford their water bills. It is an essential utility. We need to do 
something to fill the gap. So this bill will establish a program so 
that we can take some of the pressure off of the ratepayers and 
therefore allow local utilities to be able to use rates to do some of 
their improvements without adversely affecting low-income families. 
This pilot program, to me, is long overdue, but I am pleased to see it 
is included in this legislation.

  Another provision that is included in this legislation is legislation 
that I have authored with Senator Capito, the Clean Water 
Infrastructure Resiliency and Sustainability Program. The two of us 
recognize that in the State of West Virginia and the State of Maryland, 
we have extreme weather events that are affecting our ability to handle 
drinking water and wastewater. That is true in every State in the 
Nation. I could tell you about Maryland and the community of Ellicott 
City, where they have had two 100-year floods in a period of less than 
2 years.
  These frequent, extreme weather events are happening in this Nation 
on a regular basis, and it is putting additional stress on our water 
infrastructure. The President had a recent summit on climate, and this 
is one of the issues that were brought up.
  Wastewater treatment plants and drinking water systems--we need to 
increase their resiliency and add that ability. That is what this 
provision will do by providing grants that will assist in planning, 
designing, construction, implementation, operation, or maintenance of 
the facilities.
  Stormwater runoff is one of the largest sources of pollutants in our 
environment. We have over 600,000 miles of rivers and streams in 
America, 13 million acres of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds. I can speak 
personally about the impact that runoff has on the Chesapeake Bay, a 
national treasure. The fastest growing source of pollutant into the 
Chesapeake Bay comes from storm runoff.
  This grant program on resiliency will help all of us plan for how we 
deal with water infrastructure in a way that can deal with our modern 
challenges.
  Another provision in this bill comes from legislation that was 
authored by Senator Boozman and myself, the Water Resources Research 
Amendments Act. This provides help for research so that we can find 
effective and efficient new ways to deal with water treatment 
facilities.
  In Maryland, we are proud that we have the Maryland Water Resources 
Research Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, that does 
this type of research that will help us to the next generation of how 
we can use technology to help deal with our water infrastructure in 
America.
  The bottom line is that S. 914 is a bill that will help us preserve 
and provide drinking water to the people of this Nation and deal with 
wastewater. It is a very important bill for water infrastructure. It is 
bipartisan. It will be on the floor. I urge my colleagues to support 
this bipartisan legislation, which is clearly part of building America 
back better. I hope we can act on this bill this week and send to it 
the House and get this bill to the President for his signature. I can 
tell you, our local water systems desperately need the help.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Arizona.