President Joe Biden announced Thursday $3 billion toward identifying and replacing the nation’s unsafe lead pipes, a long-sought move to improve public health and clean drinking water that will be paid for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Biden unveiled the new funding in North Carolina, a battleground state Democrats have lost to Donald Trump in the past two presidential elections but are feeling more bullish toward due to an abortion measure on the state’s ballot this November.

The Environmental Protection Agency will invest $3 billion in the lead pipe effort annually through 2026, Administrator Michael Regan told reporters. He said that nearly 50% of the funding will go to disadvantaged communities – and a fact sheet from the Biden administration noted that “lead exposure disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income families.”

  • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    AFAIK this is an additional $3B. The BIL has already been funding projects for 2 years, and every state is already in the process of identifying all of their lead service lines. Each waterworks is required to at least have an inventory by October.

    And that’s in addition to multiple other infrastructure projects from this administration, including ARPA.