“To amend the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to modify provisions relating to rural decentralized water systems grants.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section revises the grants program for individual household water well systems and decentralized wastewater systems in rural areas (7 U.S.C. 1926e), under which the Department of Agriculture provides grants to private nonprofits to make 1% interest loans (up to 20 years) and subgrants to low-income households for construction, refurbishing, and servicing of such systems. Specifically, it (1) limits subgrants to households with incomes less than 60% of the median nonmetropolitan household income for the area (previously, both loans and subgrants available to households at or below 60%) and authorizes loans for households at 60% or more; (2) increases the maximum loan or subgrant amount to $20,000 per system (from $15,000); (3) authorizes subgrants for decentralized wastewater systems to include funding for a performance warranty of at least five years; and (4) extends the authorization of $20 million annually through FY2031 (from FY2023).