The U.S. Senate, at the urging of the plumbing industry and its partners, via language in a Department of the Interior appropriations bill for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2018, expresses strong support for the continued operation and complete funding of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) WaterSense consumer product labeling program.

“The Committee rejects the proposed elimination of the WaterSense program, and provides not less than the fiscal year 2017 level,” per the bill, introduced recently by the Appropriations Committee.

The Senate language echoes similar legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, which the committee passed earlier this year, seeking to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to include the formal federal establishment of the WaterSense program. IAPMO has been a vocal proponent of WaterSense since its inception more than a decade ago.

“We have seen tremendous support from across the industry, from all facets of the political spectrum, in solidarity for the WaterSense program,” said Dain Hansen, IAPMO Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. “This support has translated into both chambers of Congress, recognizing the vital need for the continuation of the WaterSense program. Building upon the House’s support for WaterSense, the Senate has explicitly expounded on its support that WaterSense not only continues, but also remains at 2017 funding levels or higher.”

Modeled after the ENERGY STAR program, WaterSense is a labeling and recognition program that seeks to protect the future of the U.S. water supply by offering consumers a simple way to make product-purchasing choices that conserve water with no sacrifice to quality or performance. Services and products earning the WaterSense label have been certified to be at least 20 percent more efficient than average products in the same category without affecting performance. Such products include toilets, urinals, showerheads, bathroom faucets, landscape irrigation controllers, and pre-rinse spray valves.

IAPMO Research and Testing, Inc. (“IAPMO R&T”) is the leading provider of WaterSense product certification in the nation and has been a U.S. EPA licensed provider, accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), from the beginning, certifying the first high-efficiency toilet (HET) to the standard in April 2007. To date, IAPMO R&T, part of The IAPMO Group, has certified thousands of such water-efficient products to the WaterSense specifications.

Read the proposed legislation here.

For more information on the legislation, contact Hansen at (202) 445-7514 or dain.hansen@iapmo.org.