S. 611 

One Hundred Fourteenth Congress 

of the 

United States of America 

AT THE FIRST SESSION 

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, 

the sixth day of January, two thousand and fifteen 

An Act 

To amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize technical assistance to 

small public water systems, and for other purposes. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 

the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Grassroots Rural and Small 

Community Water Systems Assistance Act’’. 

SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

Congress finds that— 

(1) the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 

(Public Law 104–182) authorized technical assistance for small 

and rural communities to assist those communities in complying 

with regulations promulgated pursuant to the Safe Drinking 

Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300f et seq.); 

(2) technical assistance and compliance training— 

(A) ensures that Federal regulations do not overwhelm 

the resources of small and rural communities; and 

(B) provides small and rural communities lacking technical resources with the necessary skills to improve and 

protect water resources; 

(3) across the United States, more than 90 percent of 

the community water systems serve a population of less than 

10,000 individuals; 

(4) small and rural communities have the greatest difficulty 

providing safe, affordable public drinking water and wastewater 

services due to limited economies of scale and lack of technical 

expertise; and 

(5) in addition to being the main source of compliance 

assistance, small and rural water technical assistance has been 

the main source of emergency response assistance in small 

and rural communities. 

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 

It is the sense of Congress that— 

(1) to assist small and rural communities most effectively, 

the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency 

should prioritize the types of technical assistance that are 

most beneficial to those communities, based on input from 

those communities; and 

(2) local support is the key to making Federal assistance 

initiatives work in small and rural communities to the maximum benefit. 
S. 611—2 

SEC. 4. FUNDING PRIORITIES. 

Section 1442(e) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 

300j–1(e)) is amended— 

(1) by designating the first through seventh sentences as 

paragraphs (1) through (7), respectively; 

(2) in paragraph (5) (as so designated), by striking ‘‘1997 

through 2003’’ and inserting ‘‘2015 through 2020’’; and 

(3) by adding at the end the following: 

‘‘(8) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS.— 

‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator may use 

amounts made available to carry out this section to provide 

grants or cooperative agreements to nonprofit organizations 

that provide to small public water systems onsite technical 

assistance, circuit-rider technical assistance programs, 

multistate, regional technical assistance programs, onsite 

and regional training, assistance with implementing source 

water protection plans, and assistance with implementing 

monitoring plans, rules, regulations, and water security 

enhancements. 

‘‘(B) PREFERENCE.—To ensure that technical assistance 

funding is used in a manner that is most beneficial to 

the small and rural communities of a State, the Administrator shall give preference under this paragraph to nonprofit organizations that, as determined by the Administrator, are the most qualified and experienced in providing 

training and technical assistance to small public water 

systems and that the small community water systems in 

that State find to be the most beneficial and effective. 

‘‘(C) LIMITATION.—No grant or cooperative agreement 

provided or otherwise made available under this section 

may be used for litigation pursuant to section 1449.’’. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Vice President of the United States and

President of the Senate.