WWEMA Ramps Up Advocacy Efforts On Capitol Hill

By Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association (WWEMA)

Since the start of the year, the U.S. Senate has introduced 1,713 bills, only to be upstaged by the U.S. House of Representatives, which has been hard at work introducing 3,201 bills since coming into session on January 5, 2011. Of these 4,914 bills, Congress can take credit for 37 public laws having been enacted to date. Many may consider this a good thing. From the perspective of the WWEMA Legislative and Regulatory Committee, it has nonetheless been a busy year with over 60 of these bills having relevance to the water and wastewater sector, all of which require careful review and, occasionally, action. Most recently, WWEMA has submitted to comments to Congress, signed coalition letters, or met personally with congressional staff on the following:

H.R. 402 – National Infrastructure Development Act: WWEMA submitted a letter to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) supporting her bill to establish a national infrastructure development bank whose purpose is to leverage private dollars to invest in transportation, environmental (water and wastewater), energy and telecommunications infrastructure projects. It currently has 70 co-sponsors in the House. In its letter, WWEMA also expressed its continued support for the state revolving fund (SRF) programs and its opposition to any protectionist measures associated with use of these funds, as was the case with the Buy American provisions in the Recovery Act.

H.R. 674 – Repeal of the 3% Withholding Tax: The House Ways and Means Committee passed this bill on October 13 to repeal the 3% withholding income tax on each and every payment over $10,000 to contractors and to large local governments that make $100 million or more in annual expenditures for goods and services. WWEMA is part of an industry coalition fighting for its repeal.

H.R. 1189 – Clean Water Affordability Act of 2011: WWEMA submitted a letter to Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) expressing conditional support of his bill that would update EPA's clean water affordability policy to assist municipalities improve their wastewater infrastructure. WWEMA supports limited use of subsidies for disadvantaged communities, as determined by a state's affordability criteria, or for individual ratepayers experiencing significant hardship from any rate increases. Otherwise, WWEMA believes that subsidizing communities or individuals that can afford to pay for services would be a misuse of federal funds, a disservice to those communities that have taken proper measures to sustain their infrastructure, and would ultimately jeopardize the corpus of the SRF programs that depend on loan repayments to fund other communities' needs in perpetuity.

H.R. 1802 / S. 939 – Sustainable Water Infrastructure Investment Act of 2011: Through the efforts of a coalition that WWEMA and its members are actively engaged in, the list of co-sponsors of this measure continue to grow with 54 Members of Congress having signed on to date. It would allow local communities to leverage public capital markets to finance public-purpose water and wastewater infrastructure projects by removing private activity bonds for these projects from the annual state volume caps. It is estimated that this measure will generate $50 billion in additional capital over 20 years for needed infrastructure projects and support over 1.4 million jobs.

H.R. 2840 – Commercial Vessel Discharges Reform Act of 2011: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed this bill on October 13 to set a single national performance standard, in conformance with the standard set by the International Maritime Organization, for the treatment of vessel ballast water. WWEMA had submitted extensive comments on this bill to its author and the leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee supporting the need for a national, uniform standard to replace the patchwork of 29 contradictory state rules governing the discharge of ballast water from vessels, making it impossible for ship owners to make the necessary investment in ballast water treatment technologies without knowing what the ultimate standard of performance should be.

Bonus Depreciation and Small Business Expensing: 77 national organizations, including WWEMA, signed onto a letter to Congress calling for extending 100 percent bonus depreciation and the increased Internal Revenue Code Sec. 179 expensing levels. Under current bonus depreciation law, businesses of all sizes can write off 100 percent of the cost of new capital assets (e.g., machinery and equipment) purchased and placed in service in 2011. Additionally, under Sec. 179, small companies can expense used, as well as new, equipment purchases up to $500,000, provided that the total purchases this year do not exceed $2 million. On January 1, 2012, the depreciation bonus will fall to 50 percent and the Sec. 179 expensing level will fall to $125,000 with a $500,000 phase out cap.

American Jobs Act of 2011: WWEMA joined 23 other national organizations in signing onto a letter sent to the House and Senate leadership opposing the imposition of onerous new Buy American provisions in the President's American Jobs Act of 2011, reminding them that its inclusion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("stimulus bill") resulted in infrastructure projects not going forward, while others faced massive delays and major cost overruns, and undermined the job growth potential of that legislation. WWEMA also joined the Associated General Contractors of America, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, and the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters in sending a letter to the members of the Congressional Manufacturing Caucus urging them to respect the highly integrated cross-border manufacturing supply chains that exist between the U.S. and Canada and ensure continued reciprocity of access to each other's market by opposing expansion of Buy American provision in the President's job bill.

** NEWS ALERT **

A bill was just introduced last month, H.R. 3145 – Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act — imposing Buy American requirements on all future water and wastewater projects receiving state revolving fund assistance. This bill goes beyond the Buy American requirements that were included in the stimulus bill and contains additional restrictions that have never been included to date in similar infrastructure funding measures. WWEMA is investigating its implications and will report its findings to the membership.