Sponsor
Lori Trahan
Representative · D-MA
Representative · D-MA
The bill provides a targeted, multi-year federal funding stream to strengthen drinking-water emergency response and resilience—reducing public health risks and local rate pressure—but increases authorized federal spending and relies on future appropriations and agency judgments that could limit or unevenly distribute actual support.
Communities (residents served by public water systems), local and state governments, and health systems gain stronger capacity to prevent and respond to drinking-water emergencies (including contamination events and cyberattacks) through grant funding and technical assistance.
Local and state water systems get a predictable, dedicated funding stream ($50 million per year for FY2027–FY2031, total $250 million) to improve emergency response, speed repairs and service restoration, and plan resilience investments.
Grant support lets publicly owned treatment works and state programs afford emergency preparedness and mitigation activities they otherwise could not, reducing the need for steep local rate increases for emergency work.
Taxpayers and federal budgets face increased authorized spending for water emergency response (authorized $50 million per year, $250 million over FY2027–FY2031), increasing federal fiscal commitments.
If Congress does not appropriate at the higher authorized level, the nominal authorization may not translate into more funding for states and systems, creating a mismatch between expectations and actual support.
Giving the EPA discretion to determine what constitutes a 'substantial danger' could lead to uneven or unpredictable grant decisions across states and systems.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Raises SDWA emergency response authorization to $50M/year for FY2027–2031 and creates a new EPA grant authority ($50M/year) for treatment works emergency assistance, including cybersecurity events.
Official title: To amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize emergency technical assistance, to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to authorize emergency technical assistance and grants, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 14, 2026 by Lori Trahan · Last progress July 14, 2026
Increases and extends federal emergency response funding for drinking water systems and creates a new EPA grant and technical-assistance authority to help treatment works respond to emergencies, including cybersecurity incidents, that threaten public health. The bill raises the annual authorization under the Safe Drinking Water Act emergency response provision to $50 million for fiscal years 2027–2031 and separately authorizes $50 million per year for EPA to award grants and provide assistance to States and publicly owned treatment works to prevent, limit, or mitigate public-health dangers from treatment works emergencies. Funds are restricted to activities necessary to address or lessen public-health dangers (for example, sewer overflows or cyber-caused treatment failures) and are intended to support actions that would not otherwise be economically feasible for ratepayers. The EPA may run the new authority through existing environmental emergency programs and the new grant funds are exempt from appropriation limits that apply to those other programs.