I 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 654 
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 
FEBRUARY 13, 2013 
Mr. HARPER (for himself, Mr. MATHESON, Mr. MCKINLEY, Mr. WESTMORE-
LAND, Mr. JONES, Mr. NUNNELEE, Mr. FORTENBERRY, and Mr. THOMP-
SON of Mississippi) 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 
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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 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. 
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SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) to most effectively assist small and rural 
communities, 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 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 ‘‘2014 
through 2019’’; 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 subsection to provide technical assistance 
to nonprofit organizations that provide to small 
public water systems onsite technical assistance, 
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circuit-rider technical assistance programs, on-
site and regional training, assistance with im-
plementing source water protection plans, and 
assistance with implementing monitoring plans, 
rules, regulations, and water security enhance-
ments. 
‘‘(B) PREFERENCE.—To ensure that tech-
nical assistance funding under this subsection is 
used in a manner that is most beneficial to the 
small and rural communities of a State, the Ad-
ministrator shall give preference under this 
paragraph to nonprofit organizations that, as 
determined by the Administrator, are the most 
qualified and experienced and that the small 
public water systems in that State find to be 
the most beneficial and effective.’’. 
Æ 
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