EPA’s State and Local Climate and Energy Program office recently published two helpful tools for communities seeking to advance climate change mitigation and clean energy goals. First, the Coastal Hazards Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has developed a handbook to help local governments adapt to... Continue reading

When the House and Senate resume session in September, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster intends to bring up consideration of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), a bill that authorizes federal funding for Corps of Engineers-backed water infrastructure projects nationwide. House Floor action could come as early... Continue reading

The fire department for the Town of Cary, NC, a TFG client since 2001, has joined with the fire departments in three other North Carolina communities to issue the Chief’s Energy Challenge, a nationwide program to encourage fire departments to track and reduce their energy use. The goal of the... Continue reading

A recent hearing before the House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy highlighted the pressure U.S. cities are facing from increasing costs associated with maintaining and building new wastewater, stormwater and drinking water systems. Over the next 20 years, local governments will be spending more than $632... Continue reading

This past Congress was the least productive in two generations. It was locked in a state of perpetual gridlock. Surprisingly to some, this dysfunction can be traced in part to Congress’s earmark ban. Earmarks, which do not add to spending, are congressional instructions that direct where and how the President... Continue reading

My heart sank when an e-mail crossed my screen yesterday with the headline, “Breaking News: Inouye Dies.” Senator Daniel K. Inouye was not only treasured and revered in his home state of Hawaii and the Halls of Congress, he was a national treasure as well. He epitomized the selfless lawmaker... Continue reading

Now that the election is behind us, all eyes are on the President and Washington lawmakers as they work to steer the ship of state away from the fiscal cliff, the automatic tax increases and the across-the-board spending reductions scheduled to take effect on January 2, 2013. The automatic spending... Continue reading

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has directed federal agencies to “continue normal spending and operations” under the continuing resolution, the stop-gap funding measure that went into effect on October 1st. That’s significant because the continuing resolution (CR) that Congress adopted in mid-September will keep the government operating just... Continue reading

Numerous organizations have documented that the nation’s water infrastructure is aging and that we must increase the levels of investment to protect public health and safety, maintain environmental standards and avoid the economic losses caused by failing to act, including significant job losses. With a Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation... Continue reading

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) led supporters in the “Rally to Restore Balance; Avoid Sequestration” on Capitol Hill last Wednesday in an effort to fight for a balanced approach for next year’s federal budget cuts. The rally specifically addressed the non-defense discretionary programs under the jurisdiction of his committee, the Senate... Continue reading

America’s water infrastructure continues to deteriorate at a pace that far surpasses the resources available to meet current and future needs. The estimates in the gap between available resources and the needed investments in the nation’s water and wastewater systems vary greatly, but it is no less than $300 billion,... Continue reading