Blog
Made in America Office Briefing
On August 9, Vanessa Leiby, WWEMA Executive Director, participated in a briefing with the newly created Made in America Office within the Office of Management and Budget. During the briefing, Celeste Drake, Director of the Made in America Office, provided an overview of the Biden Administration’s approach to domestic preference legislation and policy. Specifically, Drake discussed [...]
WWEMA Participates in Council of Manufacturing Associations Roundtable
On September 1, 2021, WWEMA participated in a roundtable discussion of the Council of Manufacturing Associations (CMA) focused on return-to-work challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. CMA is part of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and provides a number of resources and opportunities including a monthly CEO roundtable where issues of current relevancy are discussed. [...]
WWEMA Executive Director Shares Insight on Potential Changes to Buy American Federal Procurement Requirements
Vanessa Leiby, WWEMA Executive Director, was recently interviewed by Bob Crossen, Senior Managing Editor at Water & Wastes Digest, a WWEMA-member company. Leiby sat down with Crossen to share insights about what proposed changes to domestic preferences for both direct and indirect Federal procurement could mean to water industry costs, schedules, and technology selection. In the [...]
Bipartisan Infrastructure Passes Senate, but Stalls in the House
After several fits and starts, a bipartisan bill on U.S. infrastructure advanced in the U.S. Senate. On August 10, 2021, the U.S. Senate passed its version of a long-awaited infrastructure package with a 69-30 vote. The Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act provides approximately $1.2 trillion of traditional infrastructure funding. The vote was primarily along party lines [...]
Senate Introduces Water Reuse and Resiliency Act
On July 22, 2021, the U.S. Senate introduced the Water Reuse and Resiliency Act—a bill designed to help U.S. communities adopt water reuse by providing Federal assistance. The Act, which was introduced by Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) authorizes a total of $1 billion over five years for an U.S. [...]
EPA Publishes List of Drinking Water Contaminants It May Regulate
On July 19, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a Federal Register notice containing a draft list of contaminants that are currently not subject to any Safe Drinking Water Act regulations, but may be in the future due to their known or anticipated occurrence in public drinking water systems. The list, which is referred [...]
California Releases Document for Proposed PFOA/PFOS Public Health Goals
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has announced the availability of a draft technical support document for proposed Public Health Goals (PHGs) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) in drinking water. The PHG level is the level of a drinking water contaminant at which adverse health effects [...]
Today’s News
WWEMA has been actively involved in discussions on infrastructure funding legislation in Congress as well as among our water association colleagues over the last nine months of the new Biden Administration. Issues such as increased funding for water programs, support for technologies to help build our infrastructure for the 21st century, and issues around expanded [...]