Washington, D.C. -- Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and EPW Ranking Member, Senator David Vitter (R-LA), issued the statement below following the President’s signing of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) into law. Senator Boxer served as the chair of the Senate-House, bipartisan conference on the legislation. The conference report, which passed overwhelmingly in the House (412-4) and the Senate (91-7) in May, contains many of the top priorities and new initiatives from the Senate-passed bill, including reforms to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, a focus on addressing extreme weather, and a new funding mechanism, the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA), that will assist localities in need of resources for flood control, wastewater or drinking water infrastructure.
Senator Boxer said: "Today is a great day for our nation’s critical water resources and for our economy. The President has signed into law a strong, bipartisan bill which invests in vital water infrastructure that protects communities in California and across the nation from flooding, maintains navigation routes for commerce and the movement of goods, restores vital ecosystems and boosts our economy by creating jobs. I am so proud of the bipartisan work that went into this bill in both the Senate and the House, and I want to thank my colleagues for their dedication.”
Senator Vitter said: “It’s not every day that Congress will come together and agree on legislation affecting Americans across the country, but we were determined, and with major bipartisan support, we were able to ensure that the final result will provide flood protection and improvements to our nation’s waterways.”
In May 2013, the Senate passed S. 601, the bipartisan Water Resources and Development Act (WRDA), which Senators Boxer and Vitter had worked on together with their Senate colleagues, by a vote of 83 to 14. The House passed its version H.R. 3080, the Water Resources and Reform Development Act (WRRDA) in October 2013. Senator Boxer served as the chair of the Senate-House conference which reconciled the two versions of the water resources legislation.
Click here for highlights of the WRRDA conference report.
