July 2021 - Negotiations on the Democrats’ proposed Infrastructure Act are currently ongoing. Republican counter-proposals leave out critical areas, in particular: water issues like sewer repairs, pollution controls, and lead pipe replacement. Years of cutbacks in federal funding have left woeful inadequacies in our physical infrastructure and ignored safety and social equity issues which must be addressed. Communities on their own cannot repair or build the safe water and sanitation systems required for their citizens. These issues overwhelmingly impact marginalized communities, rural and urban, and indigenous communities. Discrimination has allowed years of neglect and created environmentally toxic neighborhoods.
Federal funding is essential. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) offered by corporations wanting to get in on city water systems for example, have been destructive, expensive to citizens and often abused. Building better requires investment for the future as well as repair of the past. All areas addressed by a comprehensive Infrastructure Act are essential: water and sanitation, pollution control, broadband for all, health, schools and climate change. The Infrastructure Act hangs in political uncertainty. The House and the Senate need to pass a comprehensive infrastructure act and to vote for The WATER Act, S.916 in the Senate, and H.R. 1352 in the House, which address many of these issues directly. Health, jobs and a robust recovery all hang in the balance.
TAKE ACTION: Call on your Representative, Senators and the President to push ahead with a comprehensive Infrastructure Act and to support The Water Act (S.916 and H.R. 1352.) The safe, healthy future we all must create is waiting.
CONTACT: President Biden and Your Members of Congress
President Biden:
- Web: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
- Tel: 1-202-456-1111
- Mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500
Members of Congress:
- Web: Find your Congress persons’ names and links to their websites at www.senate.gov, www.house.gov; send an email or leave a message via ‘Contact’ on his/her website
- Tel: 202 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard-ask for his/her office & leave a message)
- Mail: Senator or Representative (first & last name) U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.20510, or U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515
Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue.
It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.
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