Taylor introduces bill to connect rural communities with water resource programs
Jun. 9—WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Dave Taylor, R-Ohio, introduced the Water Resources Technical Assistance Review Act to ensure the responsible usage of taxpayer dollars in federal programs and help rural communities navigate water funding resource programs available through the Environmental Protection Agency.
Taylor serves as the vice chairman of the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
During the Biden-Harris Administration, the EPA established the Water Technical Assistance (WaterTA) Program, an initiative meant to address gaps in the accessibility of water resource programs.
However, Taylor's office said they have received reports that this program has not been implemented correctly, ultimately boxing out rural communities from accessing the water resource funds that should be available to them.
"Unfortunately, many rural communities in southern Ohio are left on the outside looking in when it comes to accessing federal funds, including the resources and technical expertise needed for critical water and wastewater projects," Taylor said. "I am leading the charge to reform this Biden-era program so rural communities can access the water assistance they should have been receiving all along."
Specifically, the Water Resources Technical Assistance Review Act would:
—Direct the U.S. Government Accountability Office to evaluate EPA's clean water technical assistance, authorities, initiatives, and programs from the past five years, with an emphasis on the WaterTA Program;
—Require GAO to submit a report to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee outlining their findings, with recommendations to improve EPA's clean water technical assistance programs;
—Require the EPA to develop and submit a compliance plan to Congress based on GAO's recommendations.
You Might Like
News
'Trailheads of remembrance'
News
Man in cape, underwear breaks into West Portsmouth Dollar General
News
Proctorville woman killed in WV crash
News
Former local meteorologist arrested
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
25 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Trump administration says he has the authority to cancel national monuments that protect landscapes
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Lawyers for President Donald Trump's administration say he has the authority to abolish national monuments meant to protect historical and archaeological sites across broad landscapes, including two in California created by his predecessor at the request of Native American tribes. A Justice Department legal opinion released Tuesday disavowed a 1938 determination that monuments created by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act can't be revoked. The department said presidents can cancel monument designations if protections aren't warranted. The finding comes as the Interior Department under Trump has been weighing changes to monuments across the nation as part of the administration's push to expand U.S. energy production. The Republican in his first term reduced the size of two Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah, calling them a 'massive land grab.' He also lifted fishing restrictions within a sprawling marine monument off the New England Coast. Former President Joe Biden reversed the moves and restored the monuments. noting that Bears Ears was the first national monument to be established at the request of federally recognized tribes. The two monuments singled out in the new Justice Department opinion were designated by Biden in his final days in office: Chuckwalla National Monument, in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park, and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, in Northern California. The Democrat's declarations for the monuments barred oil and natural gas drilling and mining on the 624,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) Chuckwalla site, and the roughly 225,000 acres (800 square kilometers) Sáttítla Highlands site near the California-Oregon border. Chuckwalla has natural wonders including the Painted Canyon of Mecca Hills and Alligator Rock, and it is home to rare species of plants and animals like the desert bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard. The Sáttítla Highlands include the ancestral homelands of and are sacred to the Pit River Tribe and Modoc Peoples. All but three presidents have used the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect unique landscapes and cultural resources, and about half the national parks in the U.S. were first designated as monuments. But critics of monument designations under Biden and Obama say the protective boundaries were stretched too far, hindering mining for critical minerals. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit wrote in the Trump administration opinion that Biden's protections of Chuckwalla and the Sattítla Highlands were part of the Democrat's attempts to create for himself an environmental legacy that includes more places to hike, bike, camp or hunt. 'Such activities are entirely expected in a park, but they are wholly unrelated to (if not outright incompatible with) the protection of scientific or historical monuments,' Pettit wrote. Trump in April lifted commercial fishing prohibitions within an expansive marine monument in the Pacific Ocean created under former President Barack Obama. Environmental groups have anticipated more actions against monuments by Trump since his first days in office. They said Tuesday's Justice Department opinion doesn't give him the authority to shrink monuments at will. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed,' said Axie Navas with The Wilderness Society. Since 1912, presidents have issued more than a dozen proclamations that diminished monuments but did not outright revoke them, according to a National Park Service database. Dwight Eisenhower was most active in undoing the proclamations of his predecessors as he diminished six monuments, including Arches in Utah, Great Sand Dunes in Colorado and Glacier Bay in Alaska, which have all since become national parks. Trump's moves to shrink the Utah monuments in his first term were challenged by environmental groups that said protections for the sites safeguard water supplies and wildlife while preserving cultural sites. The reductions were reversed by Biden before the case was resolved, and it remains pending. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act after lobbying by educators and scientists who wanted to protect sites from artifact looting and haphazard collecting by individuals. It was the first law in the U.S. to establish legal protections for cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on federal lands.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
White House proposes axing 988 suicide hotline services for LGBTQ youth
The Department of Health and Human Services' proposed budget for 2026 eliminates specialized suicide hotline services for LGBTQ youth and young adults. The budget proposal, which the department published Friday, designates $520 million for 988, the suicide prevention line, and behavioral health crisis services, which is the same amount the Biden administration provided for 988. However, the 2026 budget proposal would end government funding for LGBTQ-specific counseling to 988 callers upon request. When asked for comment, a spokesperson for HHS directed NBC News to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for OMB, noted that the proposed budget would provide the same amount for 988 services as was provided in previous years. 'It does not, however, grant taxpayer money to a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by 'counselors' without consent or knowledge of their parents,' Cauley said. 'Radical gender ideology' is a political term adopted by conservatives and President Donald Trump's administration to describe the existence of transgender people and the trans rights movement, which it considers harmful to children. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has existed since 2005, and, in 2020, during his first term, Trump signed legislation designating 988 as the new lifeline number by 2022. That legislation required 988 to provide LGBTQ youth and young adults who call the line with access to 'specially trained staff and partner organizations,' noting that queer and trans youth 'are more than 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide.' A senior administration official said the money for services for LGBTQ young people has not been cut, but rather reallocated to the general 988 services so that it doesn't go to 'radical grooming contractors,' using another term adopted by conservatives decades ago to falsely equate being LGBTQ or promoting LGBTQ inclusivity with sexually abusing children. The contractors who provide LGBTQ-specific services through 988 are mental health organizations based across the U.S. Most of them provide mental health care to the general population in addition to LGBTQ people. The official said only the contract with 'radical gender' counselors is being terminated, and not the resources. However, under the proposed budget, when LGBTQ youth and young adults under age 25 call 988, there will not be an option for them to be connected to a counselor who is trained to provide support to LGBTQ youth. Currently, LGBTQ young people can also text 'PRIDE' to 988 to reach a counselor with such training. The official did not respond to additional questions regarding what organization(s) 'radical grooming contractors' was referring to specifically. The Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youths, is among the contractors that make up a subnetwork of specialists who provide 988 services to LGBTQ young people. 'Attempts to discredit these life-saving services will not change the reality of what this administration is proposing: the elimination of a national suicide prevention program, run by seven leading crisis contact centers, that has supported over 1.3 million LGBTQ+ youth across the U.S. with best-practice crisis care,' Jaymes Black, the project's CEO, said in a statement to NBC News, referring to the number of contacts who have reached out to 988 for LGBTQ-specific support since the program's start in 2022. 'Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — and our President — came together during the first Trump administration to create this specialized resource,' Black added. 'It's a shared acknowledgement that every young life is worth saving, and that risk, not identity, drives evidence-based and effective crisis intervention. We strongly urge the administration and Congress to rethink this proposal, and do what is best for ending the public health crisis of suicide among our nation's youth." The other six contractors who provide 988 services to LGBTQ young people are Centerstone, Volunteers of America Western Washington State, Solari Crisis & Human Services, CommUnity Crisis Services, HopeLink Behavioral Health and La Frontera EMPACT. Centerstone did not answer NBC News' question about the proposed elimination to 988's LGBTQ-specific service, and the other organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In April, The Washington Post reported a leaked HHS budget draft that proposed cutting funding for 988 services for LGBTQ youth. At the time, the White House wouldn't confirm the veracity of that draft or the information about the funding. The budget proposal is the latest effort from the Trump administration to rollback services and protections for LGBTQ people, specifically transgender people. In the first few weeks of his second administration, Trump issued several executive orders targeting trans people, including declaring that there are only two unchangeable sexes; prohibiting trans people from enlisting and serving in the military; barring trans girls and women from competing on female sports teams in federally-funded K-12 schools and colleges; and barring federal funding from going to hospitals that provide transition-related care to minors. Federal officials have also scrubbed agency websites of any mention of transgender or intersex people, including from the website for the Stonewall National Monument commemorating the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, in which historians say trans people were crucial and became a turning point in the modern gay rights movement. At the start of June, which is LGBTQ Pride month, the Navy confirmed to NBC News that it would rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler named for the LGBTQ rights activist, Navy veteran and first openly gay man elected to public office in California. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
House passes Republican-led bills to repeal D.C. laws on noncitizen voting and policing
WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled House is poised to pass a trio of bills this week to repeal Washington, D.C., laws on immigration, voting and policing, even as it has yet to restore a painful $1 billion cut to the city's budget. The House passed two of the bills Tuesday. One would bar noncitizens from voting in local elections in the nation's capital, overturning a Washington law that was passed in 2022. It passed 266-148, with 56 Democrats joining Republicans in support. The other bill would restore collective bargaining rights and a statute of limitations for Washington police officers involved in disciplinary cases. It passed 235-178, with 30 Democrats voting for it and four Republicans voting against it. Then, on Thursday, the House is expected to pass a third bill, the District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act, which would require the Washington government to comply with requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security to share information and detain undocumented immigrants. Under current Washington law, local authorities do not work with federal immigration officials unless they have judicial warrants. Altogether, the bills represent House Republicans' attempt to assert authority over deep-blue Washington at a time when the GOP has unified control of the federal government. 'Home rule' — in which the Washington mayor and city council make their own laws but Congress has the ability to review them — has long been a point of contention. Democrats have pushed in recent years to grant full statehood to Washington, while Republicans have slammed decisions made by local leaders and sought to reverse them. 'D.C.'s City Council made radical decisions in our nation's capital under the Biden-Harris administration, passing local laws that are woefully inconsistent with national standards or constitutional principles,' Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee who authored the GOP voting bill, told NBC News in a statement. 'I'm proud that the House is taking action to overturn several of these reckless measures — including my legislation to prohibit noncitizens from voting in local D.C. elections,' he said. At the same time, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Republican leaders have been dragging their feet on a legislative fix for Washington's budget. A government funding bill that Congress passed in March to avert a shutdown included a provision requiring the city to revert to fiscal year 2024 funding levels, leaving it with a $1.1 billion shortfall. The move was quickly met with opposition from local leaders. The Senate voted by unanimous consent in March to undo it and restore Washington's authority to use local tax dollars as its leaders see fit. President Donald Trump endorsed the fix, calling on the House to 'immediately' pass the bill on social media on March 28. But months later, Johnson still hasn't held a vote on the bill, prompting criticism from Democrats and Mayor Muriel Bowser. 'It's absurd that the House hasn't taken it up. It's absolutely irresponsible, unfair and beneath the credibility of leadership,' said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who represents a congressional district just outside Washington. 'It's not our money, it's D.C.'s money ... and I don't know why the speaker hasn't put the Senate bill on the floor. It'll pass overwhelmingly.' 'This is a particular egregious example of substituting their judgment for those who are locally elected to govern the District of Columbia,' Hoyer said. Last month, Johnson told reporters that he was in communication with Bowser and that the House would take up the funding fix 'as quickly as possible.' He said passing Trump's massive domestic policy package had taken up 'all of our energy' and insisted the delay was not for a 'political purpose.' 'We're working on it right now. It's not like we've closed the door to that,' House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told NBC News on Tuesday. 'But obviously there are other problems we're trying to resolve along the way.' Bowser's office denounced the GOP bills to revoke Washington law and — while noting that Washington has mitigated the most 'catastrophic' impacts of the budget restrictions — urged Congress to pass the funding fix. 'Mayor Bowser continues to oppose all congressional interference in the lives and affairs of Washingtonians. DC will continue to fight to protect our home rule and self-determination,' a Bowser spokesperson said in an email. 'If Congress wants to be helpful, they should pass the District of Columbia Local Funds Act to fix their damage to DC's FY25 budget.' Johnson's office had no comment when it was asked Tuesday when — or whether — he still plans to hold a vote on the funding fix. Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., who is No. 4 in Republican leadership, said, 'I honestly don't know; I haven't heard yes or no,' when she was asked whether the funding fix will come up for a vote. Other congressional Democrats said Republicans should stay out of Washington issues. 'It's bad enough, usually, when they're playing in D.C. local, home rule issues,' said Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., whose district abuts Washington. 'But then to do it at a time when they haven't returned the $1.1 billion is especially egregious.' Immigration has dominated the national political debate this week, with protests erupting in Los Angeles in response to the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. Republicans said the fight over immigration is a winning issue for the party, and they have continued to lean into it with the legislation on the floor this week. 'If D.C. wants illegals to vote, we've made it clear at the federal level people here illegally should not vote in any elections,' Scalise said. 'We're still the most generous nation in the world in terms of our legal immigration system,' he continued, 'but we have to fix our broken immigration system. And you could just see what's going on in L.A. to prove the point.' This article was originally published on
