Water Resources Technical Assistance Review

Summary#

This bill directs the Comptroller General of the United States to carry out a comprehensive review of all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) technical assistance related to clean water infrastructure. The review must begin within 1 year of the bill becoming law. The bill defines key terms (Administrator, Comptroller General, and covered technical assistance) and lists specific review tasks. Those tasks include: describing all covered technical assistance available to States, Indian Tribes, local governments, and nongovernmental organizations; summarizing the activities from the five years before enactment; and detailing regions and populations served. The review must examine the EPA Water Technical Assistance initiative (called the WaterTA initiative), including how the initiative selects and partners with technical assistance providers, the selection criteria and contracting, coordination with State, Tribal, and regional partners, how providers are matched to local needs, outreach to communities (including economically distressed communities), the types and costs of assistance delivered, and a list of communities that received assistance with outcomes. The Comptroller General must also analyze duplication across EPA programs, evaluate how assistance builds community capacity to access other EPA water infrastructure programs, assess unmet needs of economically distressed communities, evaluate coordination with other Federal agencies, and evaluate how assistance supports use of alternative and cost-effective water treatment technologies. After finishing the review, the Comptroller General must give a report with findings and recommendations to the EPA Administrator and to two congressional committees. Within 90 days after that report, and then annually for five years, the EPA Administrator must send those same committees a plan describing any actions taken to follow the report's recommendations.

What it means for you#

• The Comptroller General will produce a detailed report on EPA clean water technical assistance programs, including lists of communities that received help and the type and cost of that help.
• The EPA Administrator must tell Congress within 90 days (and each year for five years) what steps the agency is taking in response to the report's recommendations.
• States, Tribal governments, local governments, and nongovernmental organizations are named as groups included in the review; the bill requires information about how technical assistance reaches different regions and populations and how outreach to economically distressed communities is done.

Expenses#

No publicly available information on cost estimates. The bill text does not authorize or appropriate funds.

Proponents' View#

No publicly available information.

Opponents' View#

No publicly available information.