Sponsors
The bill improves military public‑health surveillance and DoD data consistency—potentially boosting readiness and enabling targeted interventions—while raising privacy concerns, imposing opportunity costs on DoD resources, and offering only population‑level (not individual) signals.
Military personnel will have infectious-disease outbreaks detected earlier through wastewater monitoring, improving force health protection and readiness.
DoD medical and public-health staff, and affiliated hospitals/health systems, will use a uniform Department-wide data system and standardized monitoring technology, improving surveillance consistency and enabling cross-installation comparisons.
Service members identified at the population level as having elevated Schedule I/II drug signals can be targeted with prevention or treatment programs, enabling more focused public-health interventions.
Military personnel could face privacy and civil‑liberty concerns because wastewater surveillance may be perceived as drug‑use monitoring of their communities.
Implementing the pilot with existing DoD resources may divert funding or personnel away from other health or readiness activities, creating opportunity costs for service members and taxpayers.
Wastewater data provide only population-level signals and cannot identify individuals, limiting direct enforcement or treatment actions and risking misinterpretation of results.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Directs DoD to run a two-year pilot wastewater surveillance program at 4+ military installations to monitor certain Schedule I/II drugs and infectious diseases and report results to Congress.
Introduced November 7, 2025 by Elissa Slotkin · Last progress November 7, 2025
Requires the Secretary of Defense to set up a two-year pilot wastewater surveillance program at at least four military installations, starting within 180 days of enactment, to test for certain Schedule I/II drugs and monitor infectious-disease prevalence among service members. The pilot must use department-wide technologies and a uniform data system, rely on existing DoD authorities and resources as appropriate, include installations focused on drug monitoring and on infectious-disease monitoring, and send a report with findings and recommendations to the congressional defense committees within 90 days after the pilot ends.