IC 

114TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 611 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 10, 2015 

Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

AN ACT 

To amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize technical assistance to small public water systems, and for 

other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 


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1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

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

3 Small Community Water Systems Assistance Act’’. 

4 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

5 Congress finds that— 

6 (1) the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments 

7 of 1996 (Public Law 104–182) authorized technical 

8 assistance for small and rural communities to assist 

9 those communities in complying with regulations 

10 promulgated pursuant to the Safe Drinking Water 

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

12 (2) technical assistance and compliance train13 ing— 

14 (A) ensures that Federal regulations do 

15 not overwhelm the resources of small and rural 

16 communities; and 

17 (B) provides small and rural communities 

18 lacking technical resources with the necessary 

19 skills to improve and protect water resources; 

20 (3) across the United States, more than 90 per21 cent of the community water systems serve a popu22 lation of less than 10,000 individuals; 

23 (4) small and rural communities have the great24 est difficulty providing safe, affordable public drink25 ing water and wastewater services due to limited 


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1 economies of scale and lack of technical expertise; 

2 and 

3 (5) in addition to being the main source of com4 pliance assistance, small and rural water technical 

5 assistance has been the main source of emergency 

6 response assistance in small and rural communities. 

7 SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 

8 It is the sense of Congress that— 

9 (1) to assist small and rural communities most 

10 effectively, the Administrator of the Environmental 

11 Protection Agency should prioritize the types of 

12 technical assistance that are most beneficial to those 

13 communities, based on input from those commu14 nities; and 

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

16 assistance initiatives work in small and rural com17 munities to the maximum benefit. 

18 SEC. 4. FUNDING PRIORITIES. 

19 Section 1442(e) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 

20 U.S.C. 300j–1(e)) is amended— 

21 (1) by designating the first through seventh 

22 sentences as paragraphs (1) through (7), respec23 tively; 


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1 (2) in paragraph (5) (as so designated), by 

2 striking ‘‘1997 through 2003’’ and inserting ‘‘2015 

3 through 2020’’; and 

4 (3) by adding at the end the following: 

5 ‘‘(8) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS.— 

6 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator 

7 may use amounts made available to carry out 

8 this section to provide grants or cooperative 

9 agreements to nonprofit organizations that pro10 vide to small public water systems onsite tech11 nical assistance, circuit-rider technical assist12 ance programs, multistate, regional technical 

13 assistance programs, onsite and regional train14 ing, assistance with implementing source water 

15 protection plans, and assistance with imple16 menting monitoring plans, rules, regulations, 

17 and water security enhancements. 

18 ‘‘(B) PREFERENCE.—To ensure that tech19 nical assistance funding is used in a manner 

20 that is most beneficial to the small and rural 

21 communities of a State, the Administrator shall 

22 give preference under this paragraph to non23 profit organizations that, as determined by the 

24 Administrator, are the most qualified and expe25 rienced in providing training and technical asVerDate Sep 11 2014 05:06 Jun 11, 2015 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S611.RFH S611

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1 sistance to small public water systems and that 

2 the small community water systems in that 

3 State find to be the most beneficial and effec4 tive. 

5 ‘‘(C) LIMITATION.—No grant or coopera6 tive agreement provided or otherwise made 

7 available under this section may be used for liti8 gation pursuant to section 1449.’’. 

Passed the Senate June 9, 2015. 

Attest: JULIE E. ADAMS, 

Secretary. 


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