U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) on April 26, 2022, introduced the Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Act, also known as the Healthy H2O Act. The bill, which would provide grants for water testing and the purchase of certified treatment technology directly to individuals, non-profits and local governments in rural communities, came from an initiative formerly called Clean Water For All that was developed by a WQA task force.
“We applaud Senator Baldwin for introducing The Healthy H2O Act to get effective water treatment technology directly to the people who need it most,” said WQA Executive Director Pauli Undesser, MWS, ACE. “Point-of-use and point-of-entry filtration can be especially helpful to rural areas whose households rely primarily on private wells, might need help dealing with newly discovered contaminants in their communities, and have often been overlooked by recent federal investments.”
Representatives from the National Ground Water Association, The Water Council, NSF International, IAPMO, the American Supply Association, the Water Systems Council, the Water Well Trust and the Groundwater Foundation also support the bill.
The complete text of the bill can be found here. A one-page summary of the bill is here.
Sen. Baldwin's news release announcing the bill's introduction can be found here.
WQA's news release can be found here.
Background
The Clean Water for All initiative was developed by a WQA task force, to empower Americans to significantly reduce or remove unwanted contaminants found in their drinking water. The task force chair, Josh Greene – A.O Smith, has been leading the charge in creating federal legislation to enable funding of eligible consumers to defray the cost to purchase and install certified point-of-use (POU) and point-of-entry (POE) water treatment systems in households that are reliant on well-water.
Language for the legislation was drafted with the office of Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).