Agenda - Council - 09/13/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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beyond the scope of what is provided to all residents as an essential service. Provision of drinking water and removal, management, and treatment of wastewater and stormwater are the typical responsibilities of "water and sewer" authorities throughout the country, and there is a tremendous need for improvements to the ability of state, local, and Tribal governments to provide such services, including to address the consequences of deferred maintenance and additional resiliency needed to adapt to changes to the climate.3°6 Although the meaning of water and sewer infrastructure for purposes of sections 602(c)(1)(D) and 603(c)(1)(D) of the Social Security Act does not include all water -related uses, Treasury has made clear in this final rule that investments to infrastructure include a wide variety of projects. Treasury interprets the word "infrastructure" in this context broadly to mean the underlying framework or system for achieving the given public purpose, whether it be provision of drinking water or management of wastewater or stormwater.307 As discussed below, this can include not just storm drains and culverts for the management of stormwater, for example, but also bioretention basins and rain barrels implemented across a watershed, including on both 3°6 In addition, Treasury interprets the eligible uses of SLFRF funds against the background of the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), for which the SLFRF funds are, in part, a successor. CRF recipients expressed great interest in using the CRF to pursue water infrastructure projects, including provision of drinking water and internal plumbing on Tribal lands and in Alaskan villages, and broadband projects throughout the country; Treasury permitted these projects given the connection to the public health emergency (see Coronavirus Relief Fund for States, Tribal Governments, and Certain Eligible Local Governments, 86 FR 4182, 4190, 4192 (Jan. 15, 2021), but the short deadline for use of funds made it difficult to use CRF funds in this way. Congress' inclusion of the water, sewer, and broadband clause in the ARPA, along with the SLFRF funds' longer eligible use date, is responsive to this unmet need. As discussed below, Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act amended sections 602(c) and 603(c) of the Social Security Act to add a new paragraph as sections 602(c)(4) and 603(c)(5), respectively, providing that SLFRF funds may be used to meet non-federal matching requirements of any authorized Bureau of Reclamation project. This authority was added as a separately enumerated eligible use regardless of whether the underlying project would be an eligible use of SLFRF funds under the water and sewer infrastructure eligible use category. 307 See, e.g., section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1362), defining "green infrastructure" as "the range of measures that use plant or soil systems, permeable pavement or other permeable surfaces or substrates, stormwater harvest and reuse, or landscaping to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to sewer systems or to surface waters." 270