Congressional committees probe Mississippi's water spending

Two congressional committees are asking Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to explain how his state is distributing hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds for water infrastructure amid allegations that the Republican-led state withheld resources from the predominantly Black city of Jackson.

The letter from House Oversight and Reform Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is part of a congressional probe of the capital city's water crisis. It's decrepit water system subjected residents to more than 300 boil water orders in the past two years and left residents without drinking water for days late this summer after flooding along the Pearl River knocked out the system's pressure.

The details: In the letter, the lawmakers ask Reeves to detail which communities the state will direct federal funding from the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law to, and to explain those communities' racial demographics and population sizes. They also ask Reeves to describe the "additional layer of review" that applications from the city of Jackson are subject to.

The lawmakers also want to know whether the state's plan for spending the roughly $75 million in water infrastructure funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law it is slated to receive this year will be revised. That plan currently does not send any funding to Jackson and caps "principal forgiveness" — that is, funding that is essentially a grant — at $500,000. Experts have estimated that repairing Jackson's drinking water system could cost as much as $1 billion, and the cap greatly limits the city's ability to use federal funds for the work.

"We urge you to take action to protect the health and safety of Jackson residents and direct funding to Jackson immediately to fix this life and death issue," Maloney and Thompson wrote.

The context: The congressional inquiry comes as EPA is reviewing a Civil Rights Act complaint filed by the NAACP alleging that Mississippi violated the law by discriminating against Jackson on the basis of race in distributing federal water funds.

EPA's Inspector General's Office has also launched a probe of the city's water crisis.

Jackson's water system is getting a near-term infusion of funds, though; Congress sent $20 million in emergency funding to the city, through the Army Corps of Engineers, as part of a stop-gap spending measure passed late last month.