In committee
American Water Stewardship Act
This bill extends federal funding through 2031 for major regional water cleanups, including the Great Lakes, Long Island Sound, the Columbia River Basin, San Francisco Bay, and national estuaries. It also renews federal grants for testing water quality at public beaches, expanding those funds so local health agencies can identify specific sources of beach pollution using newer testing methods. To oversee spending, the bill requires an independent federal audit of regional watershed programs and bars any grant money from going to entities based in designated foreign countries of concern.
People affected—Not determinable from the text provided; the bill amends statutory authorities for environmental restoration programs and grants without defining or limiting target populations.
Fiscal magnitude—The bill text does not specify authorized dollar amounts, only updating reauthorization date ranges through FY 2031 for existing programs and noting an $850,000 appropriation increase threshold for Mississippi Sound funding eligibility.
Reach32provisional · pending reviewrigor: heuristic llm
What this bill touches.
Spending vs. restraint+18Pollution & development+28Ethics & oversight+18
Who it helps · who it burdens.
Who it helps
- Regional water and estuary restoration grant recipientsSecs. 2, 3, 4, 6(a)(2), and 7(a) reauthorize federal funding through fiscal year 2031 for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Long Island Sound, Columbia River Basin, National Estuary Program, and beach water quality monitoring.
- Public and private contractors for San Francisco Bay restorationSec. 5 expands funding mechanisms to allow contracts and interagency agreements with private and public entities (rather than just grants) to carry out San Francisco Bay restoration projects.
- State and local beach water monitoring agenciesSec. 7(a) authorizes state and local governments to use beach grant funds to identify specific sources of contamination in coastal recreation waters, expanding the allowable uses of these grants.
Who it burdens
- Non-federal recipients of San Francisco Bay restoration fundingSec. 5(2)(C) limits federal assistance to 75 percent of project costs and mandates that non-federal entities cover at least 25 percent of costs from non-federal sources.
- States using beach grants to identify contamination sourcesSec. 7(a)(1)(A) requires states that use federal beach grants to track down contamination sources to report all resulting data on those identified sources to the EPA.
- Government Accountability Office (Comptroller General)Sec. 9 directs the Comptroller General to conduct a detailed evaluation of eleven regional EPA geographic programs covering fund efficiency, performance, coordination, and ethics, and submit a report to Congress within two years.
Who opposes it
- Entities based in or partnered with designated foreign countries of concernSec. 8 explicitly bars entities domiciled, headquartered, or organized in a designated foreign country of concern, as well as projects conducted with such countries, from receiving any funding under the specified EPA water and estuary programs.