Sponsors (2)
The bill preserves a federal transboundary-aquifer assessment program and provides predictable but much smaller annual funding and clearer sunset language — trading much lower funding and narrower scope (including exclusion of the Yuma aquifer) for continued, but limited, federal support and legal certainty.
Border communities and their water managers in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas retain a federal program to assess transboundary aquifers, improving knowledge of groundwater resources that supports local planning and management.
State and local water managers gain a predictable annual authorization ($500,000/year from 2026–2033) for planning and assessment activities, which helps sustain routine monitoring and short-term planning.
The bill clarifies the statute's sunset language, reducing legal ambiguity about when the program terminates and improving administrative certainty for governments and stakeholders.
Federal funding is reduced sharply compared with prior authorizations (from a previously available $50 million total down to $500,000 per year), substantially cutting resources available for aquifer work and limiting overall program capacity.
The much smaller annual authorization constrains the ability to fund binational or large-scale aquifer and infrastructure studies, which could slow water-management decisions and hamper coordination with Mexico on shared basins.
Excluding the Yuma-area aquifer from the program could leave that basin and its users without federal assessment support despite cross-border concerns, creating an informational gap for local water planning and environmental protection.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds Arizona (excluding a Yuma-area aquifer), replaces a prior $50M FY2007–2016 authorization with $500,000/year for FY2026–2033, and revises the statute's sunset reference.
Introduced October 8, 2025 by Juan Ciscomani · Last progress October 8, 2025
Amends the existing U.S.–Mexico transboundary aquifer assessment law to add Arizona as a priority State (with a specific exclusion for a Yuma-area aquifer), replace the prior multi-year $50 million authorization with an annual authorization of $500,000 for fiscal years 2026–2033, and revise the statute’s sunset-reference language to cite the program act name. The changes narrow and expand geographic coverage in specific ways and materially reduce authorized funding on an annual basis compared with the earlier authorization.