{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://norton.house.gov/media/press-releases/norton-introduces-bill-give-dc-eligibility-municipality-level-funding-under", "Norton Introduces Bill to Give D.C. Eligibility for Municipality-Level Funding Under EPA Grant Program", "2023-06-12", "2023", "2023-06", "Democrat", "House", "DC", "Eleanor Holmes Norton", "N000147", "norton.house.gov", "norton", "https://norton.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced a bill today to provide D.C. comprehensive eligibility for the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s (EPA) Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling grant program. While D.C. is already eligible for funding at the state level, it is excluded at the municipality level even though the District provides both state- and municipality-level services.\n\n\u201cThis bill will ensure D.C. is eligible for both grants \u2014 both as a state and as a municipality \u2014 consistent with the overall intent of the program,\u201d Norton said. \u201cThe bill would enable D.C. to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve post-consumer materials management and recycling and implement a specific collection and treatment measures to remove these wastes from the wastewater stream.\u201d\n\nNorton\u2019s introductory statement follows.\n\nStatement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on the Introduction of a Bill to Provide Comprehensive Eligibility to the District of Columbia for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling Grant Program\n\nJune 12, 2023\n\nToday, I introduce a bill to provide the District of Columbia comprehensive eligibility for funding under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)\u2019s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling grant program. The program is authorized under the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act.\n\nThe program was intended to provide grants to both states and municipalities to ensure the comprehensive management of post-consumer wastes and plastics and to prevent the continued contamination of our nation\u2019s waters by these materials. In its implementation of the program, the EPA created two separate grants\u2014one for states and one for municipalities. The EPA made D.C. eligible for the state program, as required by the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, but not the municipality program, even though it should have been eligible for the municipality program, too. The EPA has misinterpreted the definition of municipality in the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act and is depriving D.C. of funds to which it is entitled.\n\nMaking D.C. eligible for both grants \u2014both as a state and as a municipality\u2014is consistent with the overall intent of the program and would enable D.C. to utilize funding both for the development of a comprehensive strategy to improve post-consumer materials management and recycling, and for implementation of specific collection and treatment measures to remove these wastes from the wastewater stream.\n\nThe Save Our Seas 2.0 Act defines the terms \u201cstate\u201d and \u201cmunicipality\u201d for the purposes of the program. Section 2 of the Act defines the term \u201cstate\u201d as specifically including D.C. Section 302(c) of the Act utilizes the definition for \u201cmunicipality\u201d in section 502 of the Clean Water Act, which includes \u201ca city, town, borough, county, parish, district, association, or other public body \u2026 having jurisdiction over disposal of sewage, industrial wastes, or other wastes.\u201d D.C. falls under the definitions of both terms and therefore should be eligible for both grants under the program.\n\nGiven that D.C. operates as the functional equivalent of a joint city, county and state, D.C. is analogous to a municipality that has jurisdiction over publicly owned treatment works under section 302(c) of the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, as well as being explicitly defined under section 2 of the Act as a state. Exclusion of D.C. from either portion of the program is inconsistent with the comprehensive nature of post-consumer waste management under the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and would leave D.C. poorly positioned to address the challenges of post-consumer wastes in our nation\u2019s waters.\n\nI urge my colleagues to support this bill.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T00:08:25Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://norton.house.gov/media/press-releases/norton-introduces-bill-give-dc-eligibility-municipality-level-funding-under"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9701242670416832, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}