Guest Columns

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act after months of bipartisan negotiations between the Biden Administration and a bipartisan group of Senators. The legislative package contains $550 billion in new spending, of which $55 billion will go toward clean andRead More

By Ryan Sitton At the beginning of this year, an unprecedented freeze hit the southern part of the United States. The state of Texas, which has its own, self-contained energy grid, saw power outages that it had never experienced. At one point, nearly six millionRead More

Water system providers across the United States have joined a multidistrict litigation (MDL) suit claiming that their water supplies are contaminated with per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF). These chemicals have been used for decades to extinguish chemical or petroleum firesRead More

The U.S. Senate worked into the weekend on a massive infrastructure bill that promises to spend an additional $550 billion on infrastructure over five years, including $48.4 billion focused on drinking water and wastewater programs at the U.S. EPA. As of Friday, the measure appearedRead More

Last week, the House of Representatives approved legislation that would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish national drinking water standards for regulating harmful forever chemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), that are linked to kidney, liver and other health problems.Read More

By Kyle Stevens Climate change is a pressing issue for local governments. The unpredictable nature of storm events and sea level rise has put a strain on already aging stormwater infrastructure, requiring huge investments to address the problem. Paying for these investments should not relyRead More

By Teno A. West & Jillian Jagling A method for public water system asset preservation is a multi-pronged approach, backed by the goal of ensuring that the assets are returned to the owner in good condition, working order and repair, such that the owner isRead More

The Biden administration and a bipartisan group of senators last week reached agreement on a $1.2 trillion “Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework” that could set the stage for a massive new investment in the nation’s infrastructure, according to the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA). According toRead More

The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Radhika Fox as the new Assistant Administrator for Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Her nomination was confirmed by a vote of 55-43. Fox served as CEO of the nonprofit US Water Alliance since 2015 untilRead More

The White House last week announced the official launch of the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) housed at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).  This program is the first of its kind designed to provide funding to help low-income households affected by the COVID-19Read More