Last month, Rep Delgado (D,NY) introduced HR 3701, the Protecting Infrastructure and Promoting the Economy (PIPE) Act. The bill would require the EPA to establish two new discretionary grant programs; one for wastewater infrastructure and one for drinking water infrastructure. While there is no specific mention of cybersecurity, the grant projects are defined broadly enough to include coverage of cybersecurity support of projects. The bill would authorize the expenditure of $1 billion per year through 2031 for each grant program.
Wastewater Infrastructure Grant Program
The grant program outlined in Section 2 would allow funding for projects that include:
The construction of publicly owned treatment works,
The construction, repair, or replacement of decentralized wastewater treatment systems that treat municipal wastewater or domestic sewage,
Measures to manage, reduce, treat, or recapture stormwater of subsurface drainage water,
Measures to reduce the demand for publicly owned treatment works capacity through water conservation, efficiency, reuse, and green infrastructure,
Measures to reduce energy consumption needs for publicly owned treatment works,
Measures to improve the resiliency of publicly owned treatment works to climate change, extreme weather, sea-level rise, and other hazards,
Measures to reduce the discharge of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances into the environment through publicly owned treatment works, and
Any other wastewater infrastructure project the administrator determines is appropriate.
Drinking Water Infrastructure Grant Program
The grant program outlined in Section 3 would allow funding for projects that include:
Planning, design, siting, preconstruction and construction activities related to replacing or rehabilitating aging treatment, storage, or distribution facilities of public water systems,
Rehabilitating public water systems for which one or more sources of drinking water is contaminated with perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances that meet or exceed federal or state drinking water health advisory levels or standards,
Connecting households using well water to a public water system,
Replacing lead pipes or service lines,
Measures that would bring public water systems into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300f et seq.), and
Any other drinking water infrastructure project that the Administrator determines to appropriate.
Moving Forward
Delgado and two of his cosponsors {Norton (D,DC), and Cohen (D,TN)} are members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the primary of two committees to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. Because of the large amount of spending authorized by the bill, I would expect to see significant opposition to this bill from Republicans. It might not be enough to stop consideration in Committee, but it would stop the bill from being able to be considered on the floor of the House under the suspension of the rules process. It is unlikely that this bill would make it to the floor of the House under regular order.
Commentary
The first thing that should be done to this bill to make it easier to move forward would be to decrease the funding authorization for each program from $1 Billion to something more reasonable like $ 50 Million. I do not doubt that there is $1 billion worth of water system projects that should probably be addressed, but the money would have to come from somewhere and there is only so much in new taxes that has any chance of becoming law in this closely divided Congress.
While cybersecurity activities could be included in allowable grant projects, I think that the coverage should be more clearly spelled out. Actually, I would like to see a $50 million water system cybersecurity grant program to fund outside cybersecurity risk assessments for both wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment facilities. Unfortunately, I do not think that there would be adequate support for such a program.
Thus, a much more workable set of changes could be made to make it clear that grant funds could be used for cybersecurity related projects. First we could make a minor change to §2(c)(1)(F):
(F) measures to improve the resiliency of publicly owned treatment works to climate change, extreme weather, sea-level rise, cybersecurity threats and other hazards;
Then we would need to make a slightly larger change to §3(c)(1)(E):
(E) measures that would bring public water systems into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300f et seq.) and §2013 of the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (42 U.S.C. 300i-2); and