President Joe Biden announced Thursday $3 billion toward identifying and replacing theĀ nationās unsafeĀ leadĀ pipes,Ā a long-sought move to improve public health and clean drinking waterĀ that will be paidĀ for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Biden unveiled the new fundingĀ in North Carolina, a battleground state Democrats have lost to Donald Trump in the past two presidential electionsĀ but are feeling more bullish toward due to an abortion measure on the stateās ballot this November.
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The Environmental Protection Agency will invest $3 billion in theĀ leadĀ pipe effort annually through 2026, Administrator Michael Regan told reporters. He said that nearly 50% of the funding will go to disadvantaged communities ā and a fact sheet from the Biden administration noted that ālead exposure disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income families.ā
Sadly, this is barely enough to scratch the surface. We need a lot more money put into this, and itās not like the presidents before Biden didnāt know about it. They just didnāt even do this much. Itās disgraceful.
Kind of true, but some lead pipes just arenāt an immediate issue. Like asbestos in a building that isnāt disturbed, it doesnāt hurt anyone until it starts to come loose.
Getting the worst of it solved is a good step.
The issue with not dealing with problems immediately, is that people have a tendency to push them down the line over and over until itās not just immediate, itās an emergency over a decade ago. Flint still doesnāt have clean water. This should have been a good first step Obama did, like he promised he was going to.
Flint actually does have clean water by most metrics and independent measurements, but public trust is reasonably deeply, deeply shaken.
This, and I donāt mean this as a bad thing, isnāt actually a thing Biden started. Itās a massive disbursal of funds allocated by the infrastructure bill to a program started in 1996 for upgrading water infrastructure and specifically removing lead pipes.
So this is something great to do, and we should keep doing more of it (thereās $12 billion more waiting for future rounds), and we can be slightly happy that weāre not complete fuck ups since we actually started nearly 30 years ago.
We shouldnāt have to live in a world where we need to advertise that the people entrusted to be basically competent at managing our public works are doing their jobs, but here we are, and we should probably advertise this stuff better.
Itās in conjunction with state and local funding as well. Your local municipality might be abke to aquire $4 million to replace the main lines through local bonds, while getting $2 million from the state and another $10 million from this federal program.
Your mood is a disgrace.
Iām sorry, sir. Iāll lick the boot harder, I promise!
Biden: Adds on to the amount heās already given to replace lead pipes; more than any other president has done
The Uncanny Observer: Yeah but it should have been done 20 years ago so Iām mad š
Edit: this brings the total up to 9 billion. Still not enough for everything, but how much has every other president gave? Be a little happy
Youāre right. I need to really celebrate those incremental improvements. I mean, not like weāre gonna get anything more out of democrats. Just whatever they need to still be able to say āweāre not as bad as the other dudeā.
Unironically, yes. Big jumps donāt happen without violent revolution and that rarely works out well. Progress happens by baby steps. If youāre waiting for everything to get better all at once, you will be angry the rest of your life.
Explain to me how the United States was created
George Washington did not politely ask for independence.
He and others murdered people for it. A lot of people. And then he won. And now here we all are.
Rarely