MORE WATER Act
Sponsored By: Senator Alex Padilla
Introduced
Summary
This bill would expand federal support for water recycling, reuse, and conveyance projects. It creates a new Water Conveyance Improvement Program, reauthorizes large‑scale recycling grants, and sets a process to deauthorize inactive Bureau of Reclamation projects.
Your PRIA Score
Personalized for You
How does this bill affect your finances?
Sign up for a PRIA Policy Scan to see your personalized alignment score for this bill and every other piece of legislation we track. We analyze your financial profile against policy provisions to show you exactly what matters to your wallet.
Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Restoration funding for saline lakes
This bill would authorize $250 million for restoration and habitat work at the Great Salt Lake and other saline inland lakes for fiscal years 2028 through 2032. Funds would pay for habitat restoration, fish passage and barrier removal, hatchery modernization, improved monitoring, floodplain reconnection, temperature control measures, planning, permitting, construction, and adaptive management.
More grants for water recycling
This bill would reauthorize and add money for large water recycling and reuse grants. It would authorize $450 million for IIJA large‑scale recycling grants and $550 million for new recycling projects under the Reclamation wastewater and groundwater program for fiscal years 2028 through 2032. The bill would create a competitive grant program for feasibility, planning, design, and construction, treat “storage” as infrastructure for construction purposes, extend a program term from 5 to 10 years (and change a numeric limit from 30 to 60), and raise the per‑project federal ceiling to $50 million (in December 2025 dollars) with annual CPI indexing each January.
New conveyance grants for water
This bill would create a Water Conveyance Improvement Program at the Bureau of Reclamation. It would authorize $500 million for the program for fiscal years 2028 through 2032. Federal grants would generally cover up to 50% of studies, planning, design, and construction costs, with projects that show quantified, significant safe drinking water benefits for low-income communities and/or environmental benefits eligible for up to an extra 20% (so up to 50% total). Projects costing $800 million or more would have to be multi-benefit, the Secretary must notify Congress within 60 days after concurring with a non‑Federal project's feasibility finding, and non‑Federal sponsors must provide the required non‑Federal share in cash, in‑kind, loans, or other allowed sources.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Alex Padilla
CA • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.govTake It Personal
Get Your Personalized Policy View
Start a Free Government Policy Watch to see how policy affects your household, then upgrade to PRIA Full Coverage for year-round monitoring.
Already have an account? Sign in