Last week, the WateReuse Association hosted a congressional briefing in Washington, DC to educate policymakers about industrial water reuse opportunities. The briefing comes as WateReuse champions the Advancing Water Reuse Act, H.R. 2940, which would create a 30% investment tax credit to help scale up the use of recycled water by manufacturers, data centers, and other industrial entities.
The briefing took place in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee room, and was moderated by Josh Mahan, Senior Director of Government and Industry Relations for Xylem. “We have a goal in this country to increase and attract industry and manufacturing, and to do that you need water,” said Chris Hogan, Director of US Public Affairs for Grundfos. Diana Rodriguez, Principal for Sustainability Policy at Amazon Web Services, discussed the growth of artificial intelligence and the industry’s desire to use more recycled water to support rapidly expanding operations. Chris Simiglou, Senior Director of Sustainability Strategy for PepsiCo Beverages North America highlighted his company’s commitment to water stewardship and reuse, and spoke to the role of industrial water reuse in protecting community water supplies. Dan Allen, Assistant City Administrator of Spring Hill, Tennessee explained how his city is pioneering purified water reservoir augmentation in Tennessee to meet the needs of a booming community that serves the most advanced General Motors plant in the country. He also noted that Spring Hill has had to turn away billions of dollars of economic development opportunities over the past several years due to lack of water supply and wastewater service capacity. “The biggest impediments to industries adopting water reuse are upfront capital costs,” said Jimmy Hague, Director of Federal Government Affairs for Veolia. “By advancing H.R. 2940, Congress can shine a light on industrial water reuse and make it more accessible to the industrial sector as a solution.” | 
