With the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act five years of additional funding for water infrastructure set to expire on September 30, local government and water stakeholders are calling on federal lawmakers to reauthorize core water programs and fully fund water infrastructure programs in fiscal year 2027.
IIJA 2021 assigned 50 billion dollars for water infrastructure over five years, divided into five pots under the State Clean Water Revolving Fund and the State Drinking Water Revolving Fund, with specific funding to replace lead pipes and address PFAS and other contaminants. The National League of Cities asks Congress to maintain the IIJA authorization amount ($5.85 billion each in the Clean Water SRF and the Drinking Water SRF) and to reauthorize grant and technical assistance programs to address PFAS, lead pipes, and other water infrastructure projects in FY27.
“Reauthorizing these programs is one of our top priorities,” Carolyn Berndt, legislative director of sustainability, told Smart Cities Dive. “It’s a critical time because we believe the committees are developing this legislation now.”
While the House Appropriations Committee has begun advancing the FY27 spending bills, including measures to address financing of transport infrastructures that also expires Sept. 30, Congress has yet to introduce major legislation to reauthorize Environmental Protection Agency programs such as the Clean Water and Drinking Water SRFs, PFAS grant programs, lead service line replacement programs and other IIJA-funded water programs that expire Sept. 30, he said.
Wastewater and rainwater systems will need 630 billion dollars, i drinking water systems will need $625 billion over the next 20 years to keep up with infrastructure maintenance and comply with federal laws, according to 2024 and 2023 Environmental Protection Agency reports, respectively. But President Donald Trump’s FY27 budget request proposes to cut clean water and drinking water SRFs from $2.7 billion in FY26 to $305 million and the Water infrastructure financing and innovation law – which provides low-cost credit assistance for communities to address emerging pollutants and lead, invests in resilience and cybersecurity, supports water reuse, expands access for underserved communities and strengthens local financing capacity, by $64.6 million, up to $8 million, according to NLC.
“With infrastructure bill funding expiring and the President’s FY27 proposal cuts to water infrastructure programscities and states face a potential funding cliff in meeting local drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure needs,” Berndt wrote in a May 15 blog post.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee may be the first to introduce the water legislation, perhaps as soon as this month, Berndt said. “If the general idea is to have all these bills move to committee and the House floor before the August recess, there’s a short window for that process and it starts at the committee level,” he said.
A critical moment
EPW and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee are also negotiating the Water resources development lawa recurring package to reauthorize infrastructure projects for flood control, navigation, environmental restoration and harbor maintenance that could become a vehicle for water infrastructure reauthorization legislation, according to Berndt. “This is something that Congress does every other year on a bipartisan basis, and there’s no reason to expect that it won’t continue this year,” he said.
The House Appropriations Committee on May 20 approved FY27 Credit Law for Energy and Water and Related Agenciesan annual spending bill that funds agencies such as the Office of Recovery and the Army Corps of Engineers. This bill allocates $1.84 billion to the Water and Related Resources Account of the Bureau of Reclamation to prioritize projects that increase water supplies and support drought response and $201 million for water storage projects.
A broad coalition of municipal groups and water stakeholders, in a May 21 letter, urged members of the House and Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittees. maintain and strengthen the funding of the SRFs and WIFIA. “Economic growth and competitiveness depend on ensuring a sufficient supply of water, suitable for our companies and for the communities in which we operate, protecting their quality of life,” the letter states.
“Our nation’s water infrastructure is at a critical juncture,” he said National Association of Clean Water Agencies he wrote in a March 3 letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “This has been highlighted by the recent sewage spill into the Potomac River and the Herculean efforts to contain it and repair damaged infrastructure. This is just one example of the challenges communities face, including rising costs to maintain and modernize aging infrastructure and meet Clean Water Act compliance obligations, while also facing new and evolving demands such as emerging pollutants, water resource threats, increasingly complex water resource threats, impacts and the need to ensure affordable service for Americans across the country.”
