Making Things Happen On A National Level

Rather than letting corporations exploit our water problems for profit, we believe our federal government should provide the support our water systems need so that everyone in the United States can have access to locally managed, affordable, safe, and clean drinking water services. Our research supports this path forward. 

On a per capita basis, federal funding has declined 82% since its peak. In 1977, the federal government spent $76.27 per person (in 2014 dollars) on our water services, but by 2014 that support had fallen to $13.68 per person. 

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That’s why we support the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability (WATER) Act.

This legislation will provide a long-term, comprehensive solution to bridge the current water-funding gap by taxing offshore corporate profits in the year they are generated. If passed, the WATER Act will secure a significant portion of what we need to protect our drinking water and create up to 945,000 jobs. With many systems advancing in age (some more than 100 years old), we need this funding more than ever. We must renew our commitment to public water, and make sure everyone has access to affordable water service.

We Fight Locally, Too

In addition to fighting for important federal legislation to protect our water, we also organize people in towns across the country to fight back when a corporation is plotting a takeover of municipal water services.

For instance, in a stunning win for public water, voters in Edison, New Jersey voted 84 percent to 16 percent in favor of bringing their sewer system and part of their drinking water system under public control. This makes the town the third municipality in the country to effectively ban water privatization and the first to do so through a citizen-initiated referendum.

We must manage our water as a common resource, not a profit center, and we must provide tap water as public service, not a business.