Please send at your earliest convenience.
The Honorable Lisa Murkowski
Chairman
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Maria Cantwell
Ranking Member
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Chairman Murkowski and Ranking Member Cantwell:
We are writing to urge you to support new federally-backed tools to help local agencies advance critically important water
supply projects, including water storage, management and reuse projects to meet urban, agricultural and environmental needs,
that can help build more drought resilient water supply infrastructure in the West. Specifically, we enthusiastically support,
and urge the Committee to consider and approve: (1) the creation of a new, innovative, federally-backed, low-interest, longterm loan program through the Bureau of Reclamation; (2) expansion of the WaterSMART program to allow Reclamation to
use this highly successful program to provide a more robust level of competitive cost-shared partnerships for a wide range
of water supply and water management projects, including small-scale storage, conveyance, and integrated regional water
management and recycling; and (3) reform of Reclamation’s Title XVI water recycling and reuse program to allow all water
recycling projects to compete for construction assistance under the Title XVI water reclamation and reuse program.
These same proposals have been included in S. 1894 and other proposed legislation, and we strongly urge the Committee to
include all of these funding tools in any drought-relief measure the Committee advances. With these additional authorities
in place, the Bureau of Reclamation will be able to support the highest priority water supply/water management projects.
Reclamation will have the flexibility to steer limited federal dollars to the projects that promise to generate the greatest benefit
west-wide.
(Insert example(s) of how these funding tools would help make progress on critical water infrastructure projects in your area.
Be as specific as you can: include the total anticipated project cost, the amount of water that your project will produce, etc.)
In our area, these new federal water assistance tools would help make progress on
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
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The Committee has heard from some water agencies that they are concerned that financing under the Reclamation
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (RIFIA), as proposed in S. 1894 and other bills, could not be utilized in conjunction
with tax-exempt borrowing. This is simply not true. RIFIA is modelled after the transportation version of this federal
financing program, known as the Transportation Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Act (TIFIA). Under TIFIA, the
Department of Transportation has lent out more than $76 billion in low interest, long-term direct loans and tax-exempt
financing has been used in conjunction with most, if not all, of these TIFIA-backed projects. We expect RIFIA to operate the
same way, generating significant annual debt service savings (10 to 25 percent or more) for most borrowers, at little to no
cost to the Treasury. If Congress authorizes RIFIA at $200 million, that will create the opportunity for Reclamation to provide
no less than $2 billion in low-cost, long-term financing, which will support another $2 billion in non-federal investment, for
a total of more than $4 billion in new water infrastructure.
To accelerate non-federal investments in essential water infrastructure projects that will promote greater regional water selfsufficiency and resiliency against the impacts of future droughts and water shortages to benefit agriculture, our urban center
and the environment, we need access to both grants and low interest, long-term loans to support water infrastructure
investments of all kinds: water recycling, distribution systems, and surface and groundwater storage.
Thank you for your consideration of our recommendations.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXX(Name)
XXXXXXXX(Title)
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