Sponsors (4)
The bill enables states to raise and bundle fees to fund boating safety, access, and invasive species mitigation—improving local waterways and administration—but shifts costs onto boaters and risks uneven burdens on low-income users while constraining how fee revenue can be used.
State boating authorities (and thereby local boaters) can use collected fees to expand recreational boating infrastructure and safety programs, improving access and reducing boating-related accidents.
States can dedicate fee revenue to aquatic invasive species prevention and mitigation, protecting waterways and local ecosystems and avoiding larger future remediation costs for communities that rely on those waters.
Allowing collection or bundling of multiple fees simplifies payment and administration for both boaters and issuing authorities, reducing transaction friction and administrative overhead.
Recreational boaters and waterfront users may face higher out-of-pocket costs if States impose new or bundled fees for search-and-rescue, safety, or invasive species programs.
Low-income individuals and owners of small boats could bear a disproportionate share of any new or bundled fees, reducing affordable public access to waterways.
Limiting fee revenue to specified activities (e.g., only safety, invasive species, search-and-rescue) could reduce state flexibility to respond to other maritime needs or unforeseen emergencies.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes States to collect and combine certain boating-related fees and restricts fee use to boating safety, access, recreational use, and aquatic invasive species mitigation.
Allows States to collect certain boating-related fees and to require payment of state boating fees, while restricting how those fees may be used. Fees may be collected together with other state fees and must be spent only on activities directly tied to recreational boating, boater safety and access, recreational use of waterways, and aquatic invasive species mitigation. The change updates federal law to explicitly authorize state fee collection for items such as search-and-rescue, boating safety measures, and invasive species efforts, and clarifies permissible uses of the revenue so it is dedicated to boating-related programs and responses.
Introduced March 4, 2026 by Michael Dean Crapo · Last progress March 4, 2026