Sponsors (2)
The bill directs federal funding and assistance to help repair and manage high-risk urban canals—reducing hazards and lowering some local costs and improving grant competitiveness—while increasing federal spending, creating local repayment obligations, and leaving smaller vulnerable communities potentially excluded.
Local governments and urban residents: gain access to federal emergency and non-emergency assistance for extraordinary operation & maintenance, enabling faster hazard mitigation that reduces risk to people and property.
Urban communities and their local governments: the Secretary will fund 35% of extraordinary O&M for qualifying urban canals of concern, lowering local cost burdens for repairs and maintenance.
Local governments and transferred-works operators: reimbursable advances from the Secretary can be treated as non-Federal funds for federal grant cost-sharing, improving competitiveness for other federal grants.
All taxpayers: federal spending obligations increase because the federal government covers 35% of extraordinary O&M costs for qualifying canals, potentially raising federal expenditures.
Local governments and transferred-works operators: reimbursable advances must be repaid, creating debt or repayment obligations for local operators or utilities.
Smaller or rural communities: the policy's >100-person at-risk threshold may exclude smaller but still vulnerable canal reaches from receiving the new nonreimbursable support, leaving equity gaps in protection.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates an "urban canal of concern" category and requires the federal government to pay 35% of non‑emergency extraordinary O&M costs, advancing the remainder as reimbursable and allowing those advances to count as non‑Federal match.
Introduced September 10, 2025 by James Risch · Last progress September 10, 2025
Creates a new category called an “urban canal of concern” for transferred canal reaches whose failure would place more than 100 people at risk, and lets the Secretary (or the local operator) carry out extraordinary operations and maintenance (O&M) on these canals. For non‑emergency extraordinary O&M, the federal government must provide 35% of costs as a nonreimbursable federal contribution and may advance the remaining costs as reimbursable funds under existing repayment rules. Any funds advanced as reimbursable under this rule are treated as non‑Federal funds when calculating federal grant cost‑sharing, which can help local operators meet match requirements. The change also updates definitions and makes minor technical corrections to the transferred‑works statutes.