Two New Bills on ASDWA’s Radar Screen

ASDWA routinely tracks legislation introduced in both the House and Senate.  You may view the list of bills and a brief narrative of their content by clicking the Legislative tab on the ASDWA Homepage at www.asdwa.org.

This week, two new pieces of legislation have been introduced that should be of interest to state drinking water programs:

The first would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize funds for technical assistance to small public water systems.  Introduced on February 13th by Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), HR 654 would reauthorize technical assistance and compliance training for small water systems to meet Federal requirements for the next five years.  Text of the legislation is not yet available and there is no information as to the level of proposed funding.  The bill has been referred to the House Energy & Commerce Committee.

The second measure, HR 624, was also introduced on February 13th and is titled the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act.  While no text is yet available, this measure is actually a reintroduction of legislation that passed the House last year.  With bipartisan cosponsors (Reps. Mike Rogers, R-MI and Dutch Ruppersberger, D-MD) the bill calls for a voluntary information sharing protocol between Federal Departments and the private sector.  Language is included that would protect the private sector from litigation should information leaks occur.  Given the recently signed Executive Order on cyber security and information sharing, it will be interesting to see how this measure is considered.  It has been referred to the House Select Committee on Intelligence.