President Joe Biden announced Thursday $3 billion toward identifying and replacing theĀ nationā€™s unsafeĀ leadĀ pipes,Ā a long-sought move to improve public health and clean drinking waterĀ that will be paidĀ for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Biden unveiled the new fundingĀ in North Carolina, a battleground state Democrats have lost to Donald Trump in the past two presidential electionsĀ but are feeling more bullish toward due to an abortion measure on the stateā€™s ballot this November.

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The Environmental Protection Agency will invest $3 billion in theĀ leadĀ pipe effort annually through 2026, Administrator Michael Regan told reporters. He said that nearly 50% of the funding will go to disadvantaged communities ā€“ and a fact sheet from the Biden administration noted that ā€œlead exposure disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income families.ā€

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Itā€™s actually not uncommon in industrialized countries, and a lot of countries have similar active projects to phase them out. Flint was a wake-up call to places outside the US as well, so everyone has been accelerating their efforts, since thereā€™s a good example of how bad a ā€œnormalā€ error can make things.

    Other countries donā€™t often have to advertise that their governments are doing their jobs as much as the US has, since they donā€™t have as much ā€œall public spending is wasteā€ rhetoric.