The Senate voted overwhelmingly to advance a popular $9 billion water infrastructure bill on Monday evening.
The Water Resources Development Act of 2016 will move to a final vote after senators approved a motion to stop debating the bill Monday 90-1. The bill funds 25 Army Corps of Engineers projects worth $4.5 billion that lawmakers already have authorized and would spend another $4.8 billion on water infrastructure updates throughout the country.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., helped push the bill through committee with just one vote of dissent and has been pressuring his colleagues for months to act on the bill. He said it’s one of the bills that Congress must complete before the session ends at the end of the year.
“These are reforms that can’t wait any longer,” he said on the Senate floor in the days leading up to the vote.
On Monday, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee laid out what the bill means: 29 Army Corps of Engineers projects that would help strengthen flood protection, improve ports to keep shipping costs down, help prevent algae growth in important lakes and help local agencies reduce red tape when trying to fix up their own water systems.
In addition, the bill contains billions of dollars in drinking water infrastructure spending. Included in that funding is a $220 million deal for Flint, Mich., and cities like it that have contaminated water supplies.
Flint residents have been unable to drink their water without a filter for about a year due to concerns about the amount of lead in the city’s water. The bill would make money available to the city while also making funding available to update drinking water infrastructure and pay for health programs to care for the city after the water is restored to healthy levels.
“These are not state problems or regional problems, what we are facing are problems facing the nation as a whole,” Inhofe said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest criticized congressional Republicans Monday when he was asked about the Flint water crisis.
He said the administration had done all it could after President Obama declared a state of emergency, which expired last month. Republicans in Congress have failed to act on the crisis, Earnest said.
“The administration has indicated that we would support congressional action to offer additional assistance,” he said. “It’s clear that the problems in Flint are deeply entrenched, and the administration would certainly be supportive of an effort in Congress to offer additional assistance to the state of Michigan and to the community of Flint.
“But we’ll just add it to the long list of things that Republicans in Congress have failed to make progress on.”
Senators will have 36 hours after Monday afternoon’s vote before the bill moves to final passage. If passed, the bill would go to the House, where lawmakers are considering their own version of the bill.
Californian Barbara Boxer, the top Democrat on the committee who worked closely with Inhofe on the bill, said passing the bill should not be difficult.
The bill was popular in committee and the senators have touted a bipartisan, open amendment process that has allowed many senators to get their state’s priorities into the final legislation.
The process, and the final bill, proved “we can overcome differences,” Boxer said.
