White House Briefing Lays Out Administration Funding Priorities

On Oct. 10, Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Va.) staff attended a meeting at the White House that outlined the Donald Trump administration’s priorities and plans for increased investment in water infrastructure.

During the meeting, several administration officials also answered questions from water sector leaders. Officials attending included

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt,
• White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn,
• National Economic Council Representative DJ Gribbin, and
• Council on Environmental Quality Representative Alex Herrgott.

The administration’s representatives described development of an infrastructure package. They expressed that the elements of this package that will

• make permit streamlining a priority,
• improve Superfund and brownfield sites, and
• dedicate $200 billion in new federal spending for 10 years.

The official also shared that the plan’s funding will be spread across all forms of infrastructure. This means that water infrastructure projects would compete directly for funding based on proposed criteria.

The water sector leaders expressed the importance of maintaining funding for existing water infrastructure programs such as the State Revolving Funds and the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.