Sponsors (91)
Official title: To establish a trust fund to provide for adequate funding for water and sewer infrastructure, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 13, 2025 by Bonnie Watson Coleman · Last progress May 13, 2025
The bill directs significant new, targeted federal resources to improve drinking water and wastewater safety—especially for rural, low-income, and disadvantaged communities—while increasing federal spending, adding administrative requirements, and narrowing some local funding flexibility (with legal clarity and oversight risks that could delay or raise the cost of implementation).
State, local, tribal, and rural water systems (and the communities they serve) receive substantially expanded and more predictable federal funding and dedicated program shares for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, including Trust Fund availability without further appropriation and permanent authorizations for household well programs.
Households—especially low-income, rural, and school populations—will get safer drinking water because the bill funds free lead service line replacements, PFAS treatment/filters for contaminated wells and systems, and grants for lead-free drinking infrastructure in schools.
Low-income, disadvantaged, and marginalized communities gain more direct affordability support—higher required subsidization (e.g., minimum 50% of some capitalization grants), grants for household wells/colonia needs, stronger remedies for Title VI discrimination, and anti-disconnection recommendations.
Taxpayers and ratepayers face higher federal spending and potential tax increases (including a corporate tax rise) to pay for expanded authorizations and grant programs.
Garbled or unclear statutory language around funding amounts and substitutions creates legal and implementation uncertainty that could delay grant awards and program rollout.
The bill reduces state and local flexibility by directing funding through many designated program shares, imposing minimum subsidization percentages (e.g., 50%), and capping transfers based on EPA needs estimates—risks that priorities chosen locally could be constrained or funding delayed.
Based on analysis of 18 sections of legislative text.
Changes corporate tax law to fund a Trust Fund that directs large, capped federal transfers to expand drinking-water and clean-water grants, SRF subsidies, lead/PFAS remediation, rural programs, and workforce training.
Provides new, large-scale federal funding and program changes to improve drinking water and wastewater systems, especially for disadvantaged, rural, and Tribal communities. It creates a Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability Trust Fund financed by a change to the corporate income tax rate and directs those funds to EPA clean-water and drinking-water programs, state revolving funds, grants to replace lead service lines and address PFAS, and workforce training. Also reforms Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act State Revolving Fund rules to expand eligible uses (including purchase of privately owned systems and canceling management contracts), require minimum shares of subsidized assistance, strengthen civil-rights and data collection studies on affordability and disconnections, authorize ongoing rural decentralized water funding, preserve prevailing-wage rules and permit/require project labor agreements, and create Department of Labor water-operator training grants.