Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act
(Sec. 2) This bill amends the Safe Drinking Water Act to require public water systems to notify their customers when a lead action level under national drinking water regulations is exceeded in more than 10% of customer taps sampled. (An action level is a level of contaminates which triggers a requirement for the public water system to take additional actions to control corrosion.) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must notify customers if the state or the public water system fails to notify the public within 24 hours of receiving notice from the EPA.
Community water systems' consumer confidence reports must include: (1) a definition of "action level," and (2) the action level for contaminants detected in water provided by the public water system.
The EPA must establish a strategic plan for conducting targeted outreach, education, technical assistance, and risk communication to populations affected by lead in the public water system.
EPA employees must forward to the public water system and to the state information indicating that drinking water contains lead that exceeds a lead action level. The public water system must then disseminate this information to its customers along with its potential adverse effects on human health, corrective steps underway, and advice on whether customers should seek alternative water supplies. If the public water system or the state fails to disseminate the information, the EPA must disseminate it as soon as reasonably possible.
(Sec. 3) The EPA must: (1) make information about lead in drinking water available to the public, and (2) carry out targeted outreach strategies that focus on educating groups that are at greater risk than the general population for adverse health effects from exposure to lead in drinking water.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Passed House amended" stage on February 10, 2016. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on July 14, 2016: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Daniel Kildee (D-MI) introduced it on February 4, 2016, and 77 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 64 Democrats, 13 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on February 4, 2016, 3871 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3710 days ago, on July 14, 2016.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers