National Science and Technology Council Announces Three New Goals to Ensure Sufficient Drinking Water for the Future

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy National Science and Technology Council recently released a report detailing how it plans to strengthen the nation’s water infrastructure and security through desalination. The report is a response to a congressional direction outlined in the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act.

The WIIN Act directs the White House to create a multi-agency task force to establish desalination priorities, “coordinate relevant Federal Agencies, strengthen research and development (R&D) cooperation with our international partners, and to promote public-private partnerships in the area of desalination technology.” The Coordinated Strategic Plan to Advance Desalination for Enhanced Water Security lays out how these actions will be executed through three overarching goals, and eight supporting priorities that seek to strengthen desalination technologies, and strengthen U.S. water security.

The goals around which the report is centered are:

• Reduce Risk and Streamline Local Planning to Support Desalination
• Reduce Technical and Economic Barriers to enable Desalination Technology Usage
• Encourage National and International Cooperation to Innovate and Develop Desalination Technologies

As the report notes, the three goals work together to create a framework that will increase the U.S.’s ability to avoid the risk of water scarcity and lack of fresh water resources in the future.

To view the report in full, click here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Coordinated-Strategic-Plan-to-Advance-Desalination-for-Enhanced-Water-Security-2019.pdf