Underground Construction - September 2019 - 13

at providing funding for dams, irrigation
and water conservation, and rejuvenation
projects in the Western U.S. under the
auspices of the Bureau of Reclamation,
an Interior Department agency. Sens.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Cory Gardner
(R-Colo.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and
Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) introduced the
most prominent of three separate bills
called the Drought Resiliency and Water
Supply Infrastructure Act (S. 1932).
The Drought Resiliency legislation
includes a five-year, $100-million
reauthorization of the Bureau of
Reclamation's (BOR) Title XVI Water
Reclamation and Reuse competitive grant
program, originally authorized in the 2016
Water Infrastructure Improvements for
the Nation (WIIN) Act. It is the only federal
program that supports water recycling. The
program has a current $50-million funding
pool, half of what is being proposed.
There are currently 55 Section XVIWIIN eligible projects awaiting assistance,
with a total of more than $550 million
in eligible federal cost-share. Besides the
higher funding level (as always, subject
to congressional appropriations) the bill
seeks to allow "non-federal entities" to
receive funding, those being, for example,
tribes, water users' associations, interstate
agencies, and joint-powers' authorities.
Storage project definitions are expanded
to include conveyance facilities.

do anything. Rather, the legislation
authorizes the Department of Energy
to develop, for voluntary use, advanced
cybersecurity applications and technologies
and to perform pilot demonstration
projects relating to physical security and
cybersecurity for those same sectors.
When the bill was introduced in the
last Congress, the Interstate Natural Gas
Association of America and the American
Gas Association sent a joint letter to the
bill sponsors expressing pleasure the bill

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House Democrats and Republicans have
had trouble agreeing on a pipeline safety
bill so far this year, but a second bill faces
no such problem. The House Energy
& Commerce Committee passed the
Pipeline and LNG Facility Cybersecurity
Preparedness Act by a voice vote in midJuly, a few weeks before the House left
for its August/September work period.
The bill was introduced by Energy
Subcommittee ranking member Fred
Upton (R- Mich.) and Rep. David Loebsack
(D-Iowa). It would establish a program
at DOE to create policies and procedures
to improve the physical and cyber security
and resiliency of natural gas transmission
and distribution pipelines, hazardous
liquid pipelines and liquefied natural gas
(LNG) facilities.
The bill doesn't require pipelines to

does not seek to regulate pipeline sector
security operations.
"Furthermore, we appreciate the
Committee's willingness to include language
specifying that the bill does not modify
the existing pipeline security authorities
granted to other federal agencies," the letter
said. "This clarification is critical to avoiding
future jurisdictional conflicts."
The bill is being sponsored in the Senate
by John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Martin
Heinrich (D-NM). *

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UConOnline.com | SEPTEMBER 2019

13
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Underground Construction - September 2019

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