Draft Appropriations Bill Bucks Trump’s Request to Ax Rural Water, Sewer Program
Pipes and valves at a water treatment plant near Pocahontas, Virginia. Bill Lucia / Route Fifty
“Congress is declaring they are retaining the USDA rural water funding initiative,” according to a policy analyst with the National Rural Water Association.
WASHINGTON — U.S. House appropriators released draft legislation Tuesday that would largely reject the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate funding for a Department of Agriculture program that has helped pay for water and sewer projects in rural communities.
The House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal year 2018 agriculture appropriations bill includes about $1.2 billion for loans through the program, on par with the enacted funding level for 2017, according to a summary of the legislation. The bill would also provide roughly $473 million for water and wastewater grants and related costs, a decrease of around $96 million compared to the current fiscal year.
A total of $20 billion in discretionary funding is included in the agriculture appropriations legislation. That amount is $876 million lower than the enacted fiscal 2017 spending level, and $4.6 billion above the president’s budget request.
Of the total, $2.6 billion would go toward rural development.
“This Appropriations bill reflects the will of our members,” U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
The New Jersey Republican added that he looks forward “to moving a conservative bill through the legislative process.”
An Appropriations subcommittee has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday to mark-up the legislation.
Looking beyond water and sewer systems, the draft bill includes $122 million to establish a Rural Economic Infrastructure grant account. This money would be available to cover low-income housing repairs and preservation, community facilities, telemedicine distance learning services and certain broadband internet projects. The legislation would direct as much as $60 million in the account toward Appalachian states.
Trump’s spending proposal for the upcoming fiscal year called for about $161 million to be included in the Rural Economic Infrastructure grant account, with up to $80 million flowing to Appalachia.
In justifying why funding for USDA’s rural water and waste disposal account should be zeroed-out, the president’s budget plan said the program was duplicative. It suggested that there were other federal programs rural communities could turn to when looking to fund water and sewer projects and said that eliminating the USDA program might spur new private lending.
But officials from smaller-sized public utilities have pointed to the loan and grant program as a crucial source of funding and financing. Localities around the U.S. have used the program to help pay for projects like replacing failing water storage tanks and old, leaky pipes.
“Congress is declaring they are retaining the USDA rural water funding initiative,” Mike Keegan, a policy analyst with the National Rural Water Association, said in an email discussing the bill.
Keegan noted that the $96 million decrease for grants is a starting point for the appropriations process and is likely to change before spending legislation for fiscal 2018 is finalized.
“We are optimistic the level will increase,” he added.
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Bill Lucia is a Senior Reporter for Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Washington, D.C.
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