American Water Stewardship Act

Key Points

• This bill keeps funding going for major environmental projects in the Great Lakes, Long Island Sound, Columbia River, and San Francisco Bay. These programs help clean up pollution, restore wildlife habitats, and manage water quality in these massive regions through the year 2031.
• It updates rules for beach safety by allowing local governments to use federal grants to find the exact sources of water pollution. It also expands the definition of coastal waters to include river mouths and shallow areas, ensuring more places where people swim are monitored for dangerous bacteria.
• The plan adds the Mississippi Sound to the National Estuary Program, which helps protect coastal areas where freshwater and saltwater mix. However, it sets strict rules that this new addition cannot take away money from existing programs unless the overall budget for these projects increases significantly.
• To ensure tax dollars are used wisely, the bill requires a non-partisan government watchdog to investigate how these water programs are managed. This report will look for ways to make the programs more efficient, check if they are actually meeting their goals, and ensure there is no double-spending or waste.
• The bill includes a security rule that prevents any of this water restoration money from going to companies or groups owned by or partnered with foreign adversaries. This is meant to keep sensitive environmental data and federal funding out of the hands of countries that may be hostile to the United States.