Sponsors (6)
Official title: To amend the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act of 1998 to address harmful algal blooms, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 23, 2025 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress January 23, 2025
The bill significantly improves monitoring, response, and financial support for communities affected by harmful algal blooms and hypoxia—especially tribes, coastal, and rural communities—by expanding data, coordination, and reimbursement authority, while increasing federal spending, administrative burdens, and raising concerns about centralization and data governance.
States, tribes, and local governments get expanded monitoring, forecasting, and near‑real‑time observation data, helping communities detect HABs/hypoxia sooner and take action to protect public health and local economies.
Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, states, and local governments can receive federal reimbursements or waived cost‑share and dedicated funding to assess public‑health and environmental impacts after major algal bloom or hypoxia events, lowering financial barriers for low‑resource communities.
Officials must consider broader criteria (public health, subsistence, economic, habitat, duration, and spatial extent) when declaring events of national significance, improving identification of events that need federal support and likely getting aid to affected communities faster.
Taxpayers face increased federal spending from new authorizations, reimbursements, and programs, which could raise federal outlays or require offsets.
Federal, state, and tribal agencies will likely see increased administrative workload and reporting requirements (5‑year strategies, network reporting, assessments), and expanding the pool of events deemed 'national significance' could further increase demand on limited staff and resources.
Prioritizing stronger federal coordination and NOAA leadership may be perceived as centralizing control and reducing local or state autonomy over resource and response decisions.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Expands Task Force membership and requires five‑year Action Strategies and scientific assessments for harmful algal blooms and hypoxia; authorizes $2M/year (FY2026–2030) for related assessments and support.
Amends federal harmful algal bloom and hypoxia law to broaden the federal Task Force’s membership and the scope of required scientific assessment and planning, and to strengthen federal support for assessing environmental, economic, subsistence, and public-health impacts of major events. It requires the Inter-Agency Task Force to produce a coordinated Action Strategy and scientific assessment for marine and freshwater harmful algal blooms at least once every five years and expands the data and topics the Task Force must examine. Also authorizes the federal official administering a related drought information program to waive nonfederal cost-share requirements when impossible to meet, to contract with states, tribes, local governments and others to carry out assessments of events of national significance, defines certain tribal and Native Hawaiian terms, and authorizes $2 million per year for fiscal years 2026–2030 to support those activities.