Sponsors (7)
The bill increases funding and requirements to promote water- and energy-efficient, resilient clean-water projects—benefiting many communities and reducing risks like flooding—while raising federal spending and creating compliance, eligibility, and implementation risks that could disproportionately burden smaller or resource-constrained jurisdictions.
State and local governments, and the utilities they fund, will get substantially more federal support for wastewater efficiency and resiliency projects (wastewater efficiency grants doubled to $40M/year and resiliency/sustainability program authorization increased to $50M/year), expanding funding for energy- and water-saving, and more resilient clean-water infrastructure.
State and local loan recipients will be required to evaluate and, where practicable, use resource preservation techniques for treatment projects, promoting water and energy efficiency across funded infrastructure investments.
Encouraging stormwater mitigation and sustainable design in projects can reduce local flooding risks and lower long-term maintenance costs for urban and rural communities.
All taxpayers may face higher federal spending and future costs because the bill authorizes significantly higher annual funding (up to roughly $90M combined for the affected programs).
Small, rural, or resource-limited communities risk being disadvantaged if new program criteria or definitions impose higher technical standards or practical implementation hurdles that they cannot meet as easily as larger jurisdictions.
Loan recipients (local governments and utilities) may incur added compliance costs and experience project delays from the new requirement to evaluate and implement resource preservation techniques 'to the maximum extent practicable.'
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Defines "resource preservation technique," requires loan recipients to evaluate/use them, and raises authorized annual funding for two EPA clean-water programs (wastewater grant pilot to $40M; resiliency program to $50M).
Official title: To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to consider the use of resource preservation techniques in certain programs, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 30, 2025 by Emilia Strong Sykes · Last progress September 30, 2025
Creates a new statutory term "resource preservation technique" to bundle water-efficiency, reuse, recapture, conservation, energy-efficiency, stormwater mitigation, sustainable design/construction, and related innovations into one definition, updates two Clean Water Act grant and revolving fund references to use that term, and requires certain loan recipients to evaluate and use those techniques to the maximum extent practicable. It also raises authorized annual funding for two EPA clean-water programs: the wastewater efficiency grant pilot from $20 million to $40 million (FY2026–2031) and the clean water infrastructure resiliency and sustainability program from $5 million to $50 million (FY2026–3031).