Washington, D.C. – Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D) and Cory Gardner (R) cosponsored an amendment to address water contamination near military bases that was filed to the Department of Defense-Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations bill. The amendment provides funding for the Department of Defense to reimburse state and municipal water authorities for actions they took to cleanup and mitigate per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water.
“From the start, local water authorities took action to provide safe drinking water to Coloradans,” Bennet said. “This amendment will ensure water providers are reimbursed for those efforts. The local communities stepped up, and now it’s time the federal government does the same.”
“We will continue to fight to make the communities whole that have been impacted by PFAS,” Gardner said. “Our bipartisan amendment will reimburse municipal water authorities that faced immediate and necessary cleanup costs from their work to ensure their community has clean drinking water.”
In June, Bennet and Gardner filed a similar amendment to the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.