Sponsors (5)
The bill provides modest federal funding and coordination to help community water systems join the Water ISAC and improve threat monitoring and preparedness, trading a small near-term federal cost and potential data-privacy and funding-dependency risks for improved detection, response, and resilience of water services.
Community water systems and publicly owned treatment works (utilities, local governments, rural communities) gain improved threat monitoring and faster incident detection/response through Water ISAC information- and data-sharing.
Federal coordination with the Water ISAC strengthens preparedness for natural hazards and malicious acts, reducing the likelihood of service interruptions and associated public-health risks for communities served by those systems.
Local water systems (community water systems and treatment works) face lower direct costs to join and maintain Water ISAC membership because of federal support, making participation more accessible for smaller utilities.
Taxpayers bear increased federal spending (about $20 million total over two years), which is a modest budget cost that could compete with other priorities.
Smaller and rural utilities could become reliant on federal offsets to cover Water ISAC membership costs, creating sustainability and continuity concerns if funding ends after FY2027.
Expanded incident data collection and sharing could raise privacy and confidentiality risks for utilities (sensitive infrastructure details) if the bill does not establish clear safeguards and limits on sensitive information handling.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Directs EPA to fund and expand Water ISAC participation, data-sharing, and tools to strengthen water-sector preparedness, authorizing $10M in FY2026 and $10M in FY2027.
Official title: To establish a program to increase drinking water and wastewater system threat preparedness and resilience, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 25, 2025 by Janice D. Schakowsky · Last progress March 25, 2025
Requires the EPA to create and run a program, within one year, to increase participation by community water systems and treatment works in the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Water ISAC). The EPA must help pay membership costs for those systems, expand data-sharing and cooperation with Water ISAC on incident data and threat analysis, and strengthen Water ISAC tools to monitor and improve preparedness against malevolent acts and natural hazards. The bill authorizes $10 million for each of fiscal years 2026 and 2027 to carry out the program.