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Public Funds for Corporate Wealth: The Water Infrastructure Financing Act is a Loophole for Corporate Access to Public Water Funds

Statement of Wenonah Hauter, Director of Public Citizen’s Water for All Campaign

While Sen. Chafee, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Inhofe and Sen. Jeffords’ concern with water infrastructure financing is commendable, the Senators should be more concerned with the corporate handouts the Water Infrastructure Financing Act contains. The Act (S.1400) paves the way for corporate water companies to access public funds.

The Act contains measures to provide much needed financial assistance for water and waste water infrastructure; an action Public Citizen passionately supports. However, where the current Federal Water Pollution Control Act supports only publicly owned utilities, the proposed amendment contained in the Act includes access to public funds for “private utilities” and “corporations.”

Furthermore, the Act introduces a prerequisite for restructuring along with a long list of additional requirements. The Senate should proceed with caution when outlining such requirements. Not only does the lengthy list of requirements infringe on local government’s authority in order to impose federal control, but more egregious, the push for ‘restructuring’ is the hidden agenda used in legislation to privatize, develop public-private partnerships or consolidate with other utilities.

Privatization and public-private partnerships have not been successful in the United States. In a recent report,  Waves of Regret: What Some Cities Have Learned and Other Cities Should Know About Water Privatization Fiascos in the United States, Public Citizen detailed the pitfalls of privatization throughout the United States and its territories, including not only better-known examples such as Atlanta, Stockton, New Orleans and Puerto Rico, but also the results in more than a dozen other cities from coast to coast.

Public Citizen urges Senators to strengthen their commitment to protecting municipal water systems with public oversight and accountability, and not to hand control of water systems to private water companies. Such support should materialize through increased expenditures for the existing revolving funds as well as support for the proposal to establish a federal trust fund to finance water and wastewater infrastructure.

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