Sponsors
The bill directs federal grants toward restoring impaired waters using natural-hydrology approaches—boosting local water quality and flood resilience and lowering match barriers—while creating modest new federal costs and administrative requirements and offering no retroactive reimbursement for past projects.
State and local governments can receive dedicated federal grant funding to restore waters impaired under the Clean Water Act, focused on projects that restore natural hydrological systems (wetlands, living shorelines, estuarine waters), improving local water quality and resilience to flooding.
State governments and local project sponsors can use state funds on eligible projects to count toward the non‑Federal match, lowering local fiscal barriers to accessing federal grants.
State and local governments will face additional planning, tracking, and reporting requirements to document 303(d)-listed waters and proposed projects to qualify for grants, creating administrative burden and costs.
Taxpayers may incur higher federal spending to fund these grants, with budgetary impacts depending on appropriation decisions.
Local governments and nonprofits that already completed or fully funded eligible restoration projects cannot be reimbursed, leaving early actors without retroactive federal help.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires states to include 303(d)-listed impaired waters and proposed restoration projects in statewide outdoor recreation plans and authorizes grants for natural-based water quality projects.
Introduced February 12, 2025 by Brian Jeffrey Mast · Last progress February 12, 2025
Adds water-quality planning and grant authority to Statewide Outdoor Recreation Plans by requiring states to identify waters listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act and to propose water-quality projects to restore those waters. The federal agency that administers the Land and Water Conservation Fund may provide financial assistance for eligible projects that restore or improve natural hydrological systems, with state funds allowed to count toward the non‑Federal match and the EPA consulted on project selection. Assistance is limited to projects that use natural approaches (wetlands, marshes, living shorelines, near‑shore estuarine waters, or similar features) to reduce nutrient loads and restore impaired waters, cannot reimburse already completed or fully funded projects, and does not expand Federal regulatory authority over nonnavigable waters.