President Joe Biden in Wisconsin today will announce the EPA has finalized federal regulations requiring drinking water systems in the U.S. to replace lead service lines within 10 years.
He will also announce the EPA is investing $2.6 billion more into drinking water upgrades and lead pipe replacements, funded by his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Of the new funding, 49% must be provided to disadvantaged communities as grant funding or principal forgiveness that does not have to be repaid. EPA is also announcing the availability of $35 million in competitive grant funding for reducing lead in drinking water.
The city of Milwaukee, where Biden will make the announcement, is already set to replace lead pipes within the 10-year timeline. So far, lead pipe replacement in the city, funded by a $30 million investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2024, has cut what had been a 60-year timeline. Similarly, Edgerton, southeast of Madison, has replaced 100% of its known lead pipes after receiving funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Biden established the Lead and Copper Rule during his first year as president; that required all lead service lines to be replaced. Since then, he has secured $15 billion in dedicated funding for lead pipe replacement and $11.7 billion more that can be used for drinking water projects and lead pipe replacement. So far, 367,000 lead pipes in the U.S. have been replaced, benefitting around 918,000 people.
Senior Administration White House officials said they are sure 99% of the cities will make the 10-year deadline, and the EPA will aggressively pursue a timeline that stays in line with the president’s vision for the 1% that don’t.
The officials also said Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin have been significant partners to the EPA. They added that clean water should be a bipartisan issue.
“We’ve seen many Republicans vote for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that made this possible,” the administration officials said. “Wisconsin’s other senator, Ron Johnson, did not vote for it, but we do think that this should be a bipartisan priority, and I hope that all of our members of Congress would vote for keeping our water clean rather than continuing to have lead in water.”
EPA estimates the final rule will prevent up to 900,000 infants from being born with a low birth weight, prevent up to 200,000 IQ points from being lost in children, and reduce up to 1,500 cases of premature death from heart disease every year.
Of Biden’s total $7.2 billion in public and $8 billion in private sector investments into clean energy, manufacturing and infrastructure:
- $1.7 billion has gone toward providing affordable, reliable high-speed internet to Wisconsinites. So far, 72,000 homes and small businesses are connected.
- $4.1 billion has gone toward transportation. This includes rebuilding roads and bridges, expanding transit and rail and modernizing ports and airports. This includes $1 billion in funding that the Biden-Harris Administration announced earlier this year to replace the Blatnik Bridge that connects Duluth, Minnesota, to Superior, Wisconsin.
- $3.3 billion from Microsoft has gone toward bringing a new data center to create over 4,000 jobs to Racine, Wisconsin on the site of a proposed investment from Foxconn in the Trump Administration that never materialized.
