Guest Columns

President Donald Trump is fielding letters from Democrats in the House of Representatives who have called on the president to either fire U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt or urge him to resign. Scrutiny against Pruitt has reached a new high in recent days as theRead More

By Jim Baehr Spend wisely. This statement appears time and time again in everything from public commission reports to utility strategic plans and the day-to-day public discourse. Doing this isn’t easy and won’t get any easier. Awareness and Expectations Water utilities work diligently to enhanceRead More

In March, Congress approved an omnibus appropriations bill that includes big increases for U.S. EPA’s State Revolving Fund (SRF) and Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) programs. The bill rejects President Donald Trump’s call to cut funding to EPA by upwards of 30 percent. TheRead More

In March, Democrats in the Senate released a $1 trillion plan to invest in America’s infrastructure — a plan in which the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) says clean water occupies a well-deserved front-and-center position in the infrastructure conversation. Specifically, the plan wouldRead More

| By Will Jernigan I often get asked the question, “How do leaks inform the decision to repair or replace pipeline infrastructure?” You may encounter this very question embedded in your asset management program. How does the break history factor into prioritization of line replacementRead More

By Julius Ciaccia, Jr. Over the last 40 years serving in top-level management for water/wastewater public utilities, I’ve been witness to a steady conversation about the broadening infrastructure investment gap in the drinking water and sewer industry. We continue to strike the mallet to bringRead More

In response to last week’s release of President Donald Trump’s $1 trillion-plus infrastructure proposal, Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives outlined a $1 trillion infrastructure plan of their own. The Democratic plan was included in a “Better Deal” policy package that supporters say willRead More

President Donald Trump has unveiled some specifics about his $1.5 billion-plus infrastructure investment plan after calling for a new commitment to rebuilding America’s infrastructure in his January State of the Union address. “This morning I submitted legislative principles to Congress that will spur the biggestRead More

Congress approved legislation last week that ended a brief government shutdown, set a federal budgetary framework through the 2019 fiscal year and delivered billions of dollars in disaster relief aid to communities affected by the devastating hurricanes in fall 2017. The bill was approved as partRead More

Andrew Wheeler’s nomination for Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the number two position at the agency, passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee by an 11-10 party line vote on Feb. 7. The EPW Committee vote wasRead More