A government watchdog is calling for Congress to reshape how billions of dollars in EPA funding for sewer upgrades and other water infrastructure projects get distributed among the states.
The recommendation from the Government Accountability Office in a report released Monday amounts to an endorsement of yearslong complaints and failed legislative attempts by lawmakers from Sunbelt states such as Florida and Arizona who say their booming states have been disadvantaged by the funding scheme. The current funding allocations were set by Congress in 1987 and haven’t been meaningfully changed since then.
EPA estimates that the country needs at least $630 billion worth of investment in its sewers, treatment facilities and stormwater collection systems over the next two decades to deal with growing communities, the failure of aging infrastructure and the effects of climate change. In a May report, the agency found that 42 percent of that need was concentrated in just six states — New York, California, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana and Georgia.
But EPA’s main funding mechanism for such infrastructure, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, is not distributed based on need as its sister fund, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, is. Instead, it is doled out according to nearly 40-year-old fixed percentages. That led GAO to conclude that the current funding scheme doesn’t hew to the Clean Water Act’s goal of restoring and maintaining the health of the nation’s waters.
