Apr 16 2010
"The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved legislation [by voice vote] Tuesday launching a government effort to provide 100 million people in the world's poorest countries with first-time access to safe drinking water and modern sanitation,"
CongressDaily reports.
The bill would establish an Office of Water under USAID, which would work on country-specific water projects. "It would also provide a special coordinator for international water within the State Department to coordinate the diplomatic policy of the United States on global fresh-water issues," according to the publication.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) sponsored the legislation. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Donald Payne (D-N.J.) have introduced a similar version in the House. Some global health groups have said the bill encourages private projects instead of "helping developing countries modernize water management policies," CongressDaily writes (Kivlan, 4/14).
The Kaiser Family Foundation's Policy Tracker has additional information about the bill (4/13).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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