Sponsors (38)
The bill strengthens coastal water monitoring and federal–state coordination—improving detection, targeting, and public notifications—at the cost of modest federal spending and added financial, technical, and data-sharing burdens for state and local governments, particularly smaller jurisdictions.
Coastal communities, beachgoers, and children will get earlier and more accurate detection of water contamination because monitoring programs will use newer, more sensitive testing methods and explicitly identify contamination sources to target cleanups and beach-safety actions.
State and local governments receive predictable grant funding (reauthorizes $30 million per year for FY2025–2029) for monitoring-and-notification programs, supporting ongoing coastal water monitoring and public notification efforts.
States and localities that participate get clearer technical guidance and are required to share identified contamination data with the EPA, improving federal–state coordination, situational awareness, and the speed/consistency of public health notifications and responses.
State and local governments (especially small or rural jurisdictions) may face increased costs, technical and staffing burdens to adopt advanced testing and source-identification activities, which could delay implementation, reduce participation, or force reallocation of funds away from other monitoring or public-notification work.
Local and state entities that identify contamination sources must share related data with the EPA, which could raise concerns about data privacy, legal liability, or regulatory consequences for those local actors.
Taxpayers will indirectly pay for the reauthorized $30 million per year over five years, representing a modest federal cost that could crowd out other spending priorities.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Extends a $30M/year coastal water monitoring grant authorization through FY2025–2029, allows grant-funded source identification and data sharing, and requires EPA guidance to include new testing technologies.
Allows states and local governments that receive coastal water monitoring and notification grants to use grant funds to identify specific sources of contamination and to share that source data with the EPA. Extends the existing authorization for $30 million per year in monitoring-and-notification grant funding for five years (FY2025–2029) and requires EPA guidance to include innovations in water testing technologies for coastal recreation monitoring programs.
Introduced January 21, 2025 by David Joyce · Last progress January 21, 2025