Democrats’ new rescue bill seeks water assistance, shutoff moratorium
The plan includes $1.5 billion to help low-income households cover water bills and a moratorium on utility shutoffs.
House Democrats’ new economic rescue plan includes $1.5 billion to help low-income households cover their water bills and a moratorium on utility service shutoffs for any entity receiving federal relief funds, but they omitted any measures to address climate change or boost clean energy that had been sought by green groups.
The water assistance would be allotted through a program modeled on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, with funds distributed to states and tribes based on a formula that accounts for the prevalence of poverty and the severity of the coronavirus crisis. The money would then be paid to drinking water and wastewater utilities.
Utilities should, “to the maximum extent practicable, establish or maintain in effect policies to ensure that no home energy service or public water system service” remains disconnected during the pandemic, the legislation states.
Drinking water and wastewater utilities have warned that they face a yawning gap between the costs of operating their systems and the payments they are receiving from customers during the pandemic. For many utilities, industrial water use has plummeted at the same time that fees from new hook-ups are down, and many states and large utilities have already agreed not to shut off services to customers who are delinquent on their bills.
The $3 trillion package — dubbed the HEROES Act — also calls for at least $30 million for Native American tribes to deliver potable water to residents lacking access. Tribes have been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic, and on reservations like the Navajo Nation, the situation has been compounded by a lack of access to running water.
The bill would also offer direct assistance to biofuel producers that have been slammed by the collapse in fuel demand. Over half of all U.S. biofuel production capacity has gone offline in the past five months.
The program offers to pay biofuel producers 45 cents for each gallon an affected biofuel plant produced between Jan. 1 and May 1 of this year. The Secretary of Agriculture can also pay biofuel plants that produced no fuel 45 cents a gallon for half the amount of fuel the plant produced in the corresponding month last year. The bill does not appropriate any additional funds for this section, but it does authorize the Treasury Department to pay it out of unobligated funds.
In addition, the bill would create a $50 million program for environmental justice grants to be administered by EPA and provides an additional $5 million for the Interior Department’s inspector general office.
The massive 1,815-page package appears silent on broader energy issues. It does not contain any sort of clean energy tax credits for the hard-hit sector, nor does it include any funds to fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as many energy-state lawmakers and the ravaged oil sector have sought.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to consider the legislation on Thursday ahead of floor action on Friday. Senate Republicans have recoiled at the prospect of another massive relief package, even as House Democrats forge ahead.