The president has pledged to steer funding to impoverished communities with histories of pollution and discrimination. But can he win cooperation from GOP-led states?
......"The O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant has been at the center of a decades-long debate over which entity has responsibility for financing long-needed repairs. Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said fixing the city’s water system could cost more than $1 billion.
The state’s Republican leaders have accused the city of mismanaging the facility, while Jackson officials have said few cities could afford the kinds of costly upgrades it requires using utility revenue and municipal funds alone. Still, some elected Democratic officials, such as Rep. Bennie Thompson, have also expressed some frustration with the city.
For Biden, who has made helping those types of disadvantaged communities a priority, steering money through state governments reluctant to cede control to the federal government presents a major hurdle, according to advocates and Mississippi officials. Jackson officials have complained that the state legislature was too slow in distributing federal money from pandemic stimulus to the cities that needed it, taking until this April to pass spending measures from that March 2021 stimulus...."
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/02/us/jackson-mississippi-water-department/index.html
