Water Agency and Transparency Enhancement Review (WATER) Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The WATER Act targets major California water-supply and storage projects, including surface and groundwater storage, aquifer recharge, and state conveyance projects. Interior and Commerce must identify ongoing or potential projects for which they share responsibilities under Endangered Species Act section 7 or have individual National Environmental Policy Act responsibilities. Each Secretary must designate a federal official to coordinate the agency compliance work. Within 30 days, those officials must identify regulatory hurdles that unduly burden each project, identify recent legal changes that affect the projects from a regulatory perspective, including the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, and develop proposed plans for Secretaries to suspend, revise, or rescind regulations or procedures that are unnecessary to protect the public interest or comply with law.
Who Benefits and How
California water agencies and project sponsors benefit from a federal inventory and expedited review of regulatory hurdles. Water users, irrigation districts, and communities served by storage or recharge projects benefit if federal coordination reduces delay in project permitting, utilization, transmission, delivery, or supply. Interior and Commerce officials benefit from designated leads for ESA and NEPA coordination. State conveyance and groundwater recharge projects benefit from review of recent law changes that may reduce procedural burdens.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Interior and Commerce staff must inventory projects, designate officials, coordinate information, identify burdens, review recent legal changes, and prepare proposed plans within 30 days. Federal wildlife, reclamation, fisheries, and environmental-review staff may need to revise procedures while still complying with ESA and NEPA. Environmental stakeholders may face faster regulatory change proposals and less procedural delay. Project sponsors must still supply information and navigate any revised compliance process.
Key Provisions
- Requires Interior and Commerce to identify major California water-supply and storage projects with ESA or NEPA responsibilities.
- Requires each Secretary to designate a coordinating federal official for agency compliance duties.
- Requires officials within 30 days to identify regulatory hurdles and recent legal changes affecting each project.
- Directs proposed plans to suspend, revise, or rescind unnecessary regulations or procedures that unduly burden water projects.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Requires Interior and Commerce to identify California water-supply and storage projects with ESA or NEPA responsibilities, designate coordinating officials, and within 30 days propose plans to suspend, revise, or rescind unnecessary regulatory hurdles that burden permitting, delivery, storage, or water infrastructure.
Key Policy Areas
Water Infrastructure, California, Permitting, Environmental Review
Primary Purpose
Requires Interior and Commerce to identify California water-supply and storage projects with ESA or NEPA responsibilities, designate coordinating officials, and within 30 days propose plans to suspend, revise, or rescind unnecessary regulatory hurdles that burden permitting, delivery, storage, or water infrastructure.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- California water agencies
- Project sponsors
- Irrigation districts
- Water users
- Groundwater recharge projects
- State conveyance projects
Identified Costs
- Interior Department staff
- Commerce Department staff
- Federal wildlife officials
- Federal environmental-review staff
- Environmental stakeholders
- Project sponsors
Sponsors
Adam Gray
D-CA | Primary Sponsor
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMr. Gray (for himself and Mr. Costa) introduced the following …
Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Introduced in House
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
California water agencies, Project sponsors
Commerce Department staff, Interior Department staff
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "ESA"
- → Endangered Species Act
- "NEPA"
- → National Environmental Policy Act
- "Commerce"
- → Department of Commerce
- "Interior"
- → Department of the Interior
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology