Underground Construction - February 2020 - 19

WASHINGTON REGULATORY OUTLOOK

Stephen Barlas | Washington Editor

Regulation Changes Could Benefit
Underground Industry in 2020
Two key Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) regulations could have a big impact on
water and gas pipeline construction if they
are completed this year. One proposed rule
would require drinking water pipe replacement, the other limits state ability to delay
or halt gas pipeline builds.
Otherwise, the Washington scene isn't
likely to produce big surprises. With 2020
being a presidential election year, major
initiatives, particularly via Congress, are less
likely to finalize. On Capitol Hill, there will
probably be a minor pipeline safety reauthorization, and funding levels for key underground construction programs in the sewer,
drinking water and broadband areas will be
continued in fiscal 2020 at current levels.
One of the two prominent regulatory
actions that may be completed this year is
EPA update of the 1991-vintage lead and
copper rule, which has to do with acceptable levels of each substance in drinking
water pipes, both inside the house and
those managed by utilities. There have
been numerous lead "emergencies" around
the country, often at schools and other facilities where children are present, and that
is politically motivating the EPA's push.
The proposed rule only makes changes
regarding lead.
"The new requirements for lead service
line inventories and replacement plans,
and lead sampling in all schools and
childcare facilities will necessitate significant resources for both regulated entities
and primacy agencies to implement after
the rule is finalized," said Toby Baker,
executive director, Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality.
There will be heavy compliance costs for
state and local governments, and private
water companies - not to mention business
opportunities for the latter. The good news
is that the Drinking Water State Revolving
Funds (SRF) will be available as a funding
source for individual projects. Congress has
turned down the Trump administration's
demand to reduce funding for the Drinking
Water and Clean Water SRFs in fiscal

2020, which began Oct. 1, 2019. In the
final fiscal 2020 appropriations bill, passed
in mid-December, Congress gave the
CWSRF $1,638,826,000 and the DWSRF
$1,126,088,000 - the same amounts they
received in fiscal 2019.
Funding for the CWSRF could have
been much higher if Congress passed
the Water Quality Protection and Job
Creation Act of 2019 (H.R. 1497). The
House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee passed that bill with bipartisan
support in late October. The legislation sets
the CWSRF authorization level (meaning
how much Congress could appropriate, if
it wants to) at a record $4-billion-a-year
for five years starting in 2020. But that
number is pie-in-the-sky, as appropriations
will never reach that level. Moreover, there
is almost no chance Congress will pass this
authorization bill in 2020.

Rural broadband funding
As with water project funding, federal
funding for broadband infrastructure is
also likely to hold steady. At least in this

case, Congress established a new initiative
two years ago focused on rural broadband
construction, that continues to benefit
from bipartisan support. That is the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's Rural eConnectivity Pilot Program, which received
$550 million initially and then another
$600 million in fiscal 2019.
The appropriations bill for fiscal 2020
that Congress passed in December, gives
ReConnect another $555 million in fiscal
2020, which actually started Oct. 1, 2019,
according to Carolyn Just, spokeswoman
for the NTCA, the rural broadband association. That money is just now starting to be
dispersed to broadband companies around
the country, as the USDA's Rural Utilities
Service starts to put program rules in place.
Applications for a second round of funding with fiscal 2019 dollars are due at the
USDA by March 16, 2020. There are three
funding components available: 100-percent
loan, 100-percent grant and loan-grant
combinations. Awards in the first round,
announced last December, were generally
under $10 million, with some as low as
$2 million. For example, a $2.1 million in
ReConnect Program funding grant went
to the Ohio Valley Industrial and Business
Development Corporation to construct
a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network
utilizing gigabit passive optical network
technologies in rural West Virginia.

Gas pipelines
While the federal government funds broadband and water infrastructure construction,
that is not the case with gas pipelines, of
course. But the Trump administration is
trying to remove impediments to construction as the EPA revises the Clean
Water Act's Section 401, which requires gas
companies to obtain certification from state
and local agencies when pipeline construction crosses streams and rivers. Section 401
certification is supposed to insure against
pipeline effluent polluting the water.
The public comment deadline for the
proposed rule closed last October, so it is
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Underground Construction - February 2020

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