Sponsors (2)
The bill provides renewed federal support and updated guidance to better detect and disclose coastal water contamination—improving environmental quality and public awareness—but relies on limited funding and creates potential cost, liability, and administrative burdens for state and local governments.
State and local governments (and the communities they serve) will get improved tools and guidance—combining grant-supported source-identification efforts with updated testing guidance—to more accurately identify pollution sources and speed targeted cleanup, improving coastal water quality and environmental outcomes.
The bill restores authorization of up to $30 million annually for FY2025–FY2029 to support monitoring and beach water quality programs, preserving federal funding pathways for state and local monitoring efforts.
Requiring disclosure of identified contamination sources increases public access to information about beach water risks, helping residents, visitors, and renters make safer choices and increasing local transparency.
The $30 million annual authorization may be insufficient to meet nationwide source-identification and monitoring needs, leaving some states, localities, and communities (especially rural areas) underfunded.
The updated testing guidance recommends newer technologies but includes no new funding, meaning state and local governments could face out-of-pocket costs to adopt recommended methods.
Public disclosure of identified contamination sources could increase legal liability exposure and reputational harm for local governments, potentially raising local costs and deterring some jurisdictions from using the grants or pursuing source-identification activities.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Introduced February 11, 2025 by Ronald Lee Wyden · Last progress February 11, 2025
Allows State and local recipients of the federal coastal recreation water grants to use grant funds to identify specific sources of contamination (including nearby shallow upstream waters and adjacent beach access points) and requires that data about identified sources be included in required disclosures. It also updates the program's statutory authorization to $30,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2025–2029 and directs the EPA Administrator to ensure guidance to grant recipients reflects innovations in water testing technologies. These changes are modest, program-level amendments: they change allowable grant uses, require related reporting when those uses are employed, extend the authorization period and amount, and ask EPA to update guidance to encourage modern testing methods. No new appropriations are provided by the text itself.