I 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2853 
To amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize technical assistance 
to small public water systems, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 23, 2015 
Mr. HARPER (for himself and Mr. TONKO) introduced the following bill; which 
was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize tech-
nical assistance to small public water systems, and for 
other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives 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 
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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 train-
ing— 
(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 per-
cent of the community water systems serve a popu-
lation of less than 10,000 individuals; 
(4) small and rural communities have the great-
est difficulty providing safe, affordable public drink-
ing 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 com-
pliance 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— 
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(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 commu-
nities; and 
(2) local support is the key to making Federal 
assistance initiatives work in small and rural com-
munities to the maximum benefit. 
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), respec-
tively; 
(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 pro-
vide to small public water systems onsite tech-
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nical assistance, circuit-rider technical assist-
ance programs, multistate, regional technical 
assistance programs, onsite and regional train-
ing, assistance with implementing source water 
protection plans, and assistance with imple-
menting monitoring plans, rules, regulations, 
and water security enhancements. 
‘‘(B) PREFERENCE.—To ensure that tech-
nical 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 non-
profit organizations that, as determined by the 
Administrator, are the most qualified and expe-
rienced in providing training and technical as-
sistance to small public water systems and that 
the small community water systems in that 
State find to be the most beneficial and effec-
tive. 
‘‘(C) LIMITATION.—No grant or coopera-
tive agreement provided or otherwise made 
available under this section may be used for liti-
gation pursuant to section 1449.’’. 
Æ 
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