Search

Today Clean Water Action testified on HB161, the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority Sunset Act. This important bill sets up a review by the state Department of Legislative Services to consider whether or how this quasi-state agency, created by the state in 1980 to plan and finance trash incinerators, should continue.

President Biden proposed a lot of money for funding of lead pipe replacement in the American Jobs Plan. This could be a game changer. Removing the largest source of lead in drinking water is an enormous and expensive task. The cost of lead service line replacement has been the biggest barrier to both decisive federal regulation and proactive water system and community action. In addition to the President’s plan, significant funding has been included in several bills introduced or in the works in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House this year. With allies, we have advocated for $45 billion

The Minnesota Legislature has been in session since January 6th, without many final actions to show for the time spent. In the past 12 weeks there has been a flurry of activity in the House and Senate, although from the perspective of clean water there are stark contrasts between the directions that they are headed in the remaining weeks until they adjourn on May 16th.

Senate

In the Senate, leadership has refused a hearing on legislation to ban PFAS in food packaging, a commonsense measure to protect Minnesotans from chemcials that risk human and environmental health.

Instead, the Senate has