1. Safe Drinking Water: Yes or No?

2. Safe Drinking Water Act: a Preliminary Timeline
1974 Safe Drinking Water Act passed.
SDWA directs the US EPA to set national health-based standards (MCLs – maximum contaminant levels) for both naturally-occurring and man-made contaminants found in drinking water. States may set more stringent standards.
June EPA issues 1st national safe drinking water standards for 40,000 community and 200,000 other public water systems. In three years, 35 states revised standards and spending for safe drinking water increased 32%.
June SWDA amended to require EPA to:
Regulate more than 80 contaminants in drinking water within three years, and, after that, at least 25 more by 1991.
Require certain water systems to use filtration and disinfection treatment;
Impose new monitoring requirements on public water systems for contaminants not yet regulated.
May 1992 – EPA issues final standards for 23 chemicals.
August 1996 – Clinton signs amended SDWA to strengthen and expand the nation's drinking water protections and to include a drinking water treatment loan fund.

3. The Political Context in the 1980s and 1990s
Continuing budget battles between Congress and President, and budget cutting at the federal level shifted the financial burden of solving problems to state and local government.
National standards were increasingly popular because they:
Provided political cover for programs and expenditures;
Helped leverage state policy goals; and
Created a floor to prevent a “race to the bottom.”
While states and localities generally supported the amendments to the SDWA, they chafed at the costs and the growing use of “unfunded federal mandates.”

4. Infrastructure: Footing the Bill for Safe Drinking Water
Show Me The Money!!
Infrastructure: Footing the Bill for Safe Drinking Water

5. 1996 Amendments
Consumer Confidence Reports - Annual water systems reports about the water they provide, including information on detected contaminants, possible health effects, and source.
Cost-Benefit Analysis - US EPA must conduct a thorough analysis for every new standard to determine whether the benefits of a drinking water standard justify the costs.
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund – States can use this fund to help water systems make infrastructure or management improvements or to help protect source water.
Microbial Contaminants and Disinfection Byproducts - US EPA is required to strengthen protection for microbial contaminants, including Cryptosporidium, while strengthening control over the byproducts of chemical disinfection.
Other provisions mandate operator certification, public information, and special assistance to small public water systems.

6. 1996 Amendments
Consumer Confidence Reports - Annual water systems reports about the water they provide, including information on detected contaminants, possible health effects, and source.
Cost-Benefit Analysis - US EPA must conduct a thorough analysis for every new standard to determine whether the benefits of a drinking water standard justify the costs.
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund – States can use this fund to help water systems make infrastructure or management improvements or to help protect source water.
Microbial Contaminants and Disinfection Byproducts - US EPA is required to strengthen protection for microbial contaminants, including Cryptosporidium, while strengthening control over the byproducts of chemical disinfection.
Other provisions mandate operator certification, public information, and special assistance to small public water systems.

7. 1996 Amendments
Consumer Confidence Reports - Annual water systems reports about the water they provide, including information on detected contaminants, possible health effects, and source.
Cost-Benefit Analysis - US EPA must conduct a thorough analysis for every new standard to determine whether the benefits of a drinking water standard justify the costs.
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund – States can use this fund to help water systems make infrastructure or management improvements or to help protect source water.
Microbial Contaminants and Disinfection Byproducts - US EPA is required to strengthen protection for microbial contaminants, including Cryptosporidium, while strengthening control over the byproducts of chemical disinfection.
Other provisions mandate operator certification, public information, and special assistance to small public water systems.

8. The policy collision between SDWA and UMRA

9. What is an unfunded mandate?
Most Coercive
Least Coercive
Direct orders – EX: CWA
Cross-over sanctions – EX: 21-yr-old drinking age triggering reduction in highway funds
Cross-cutting regulations – EX: handicap accessibility grant conditions which require state action
Grant conditions – EX: Medicaid expansion
Partial preemption – EX: OSHA preemption of state enforcement standards but with option of delegation
Total preemption – EX: tobacco regulation with complete preemption of state law

10. Constitutional Delegation of Legislative Authority
“.. .all legislative powers" are vested by Art. 1, Sec. 1 of the United States Constitution, in the Congress, which cannot delegate that power to anyone else.
However, the Supreme Court ruled in In J. W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States (1928) that congressional delegation of legislative authority is an implied power of Congress that is constitutional so long as Congress provides an "intelligible principle" to guide the executive branch.
The Administrative Procedure Act (5U.S.C.A. §§ 551–706 [Supp. 1993]) governs the practice and proceedings before federal administrative agencies. The procedural rules and regulations of most federal agencies are set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

11. How to research regulatory issues?
Proquest
information