Despite Rising Living Costs, Water Affordability Legislation Stalls

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Healthcare. Gasoline. Electricity. Mortgage rates. Water bills.

Up. Up. Up. Up. Up.

The cost of basic goods and services – now a leading issue in the midterm elections – continues to rise and Americans are feeling pinched. 

But as the midterms approach and lame-duck sessions follow, advocates are already preparing to make their case to a fresh bundle of lawmakers. Neither in Lansing nor on Capitol Hill has water affordability legislation gained enough support to become law. It does not appear likely that any action will take place before new members are sworn into office next year.

“We’re really looking towards January and a new administration and a new majority legislature that will allow us to be able to move on some important bills,” said Sylvia Orduño, who has been on the frontlines of the debate as an organizer for the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization.

It can hardly wait that long. About half of lower income households surveyed by Pew Research in July and August said they could not pay all their monthly bills on time.

Pew did not ask directly about water bills, but pressure there is mounting.

Wayne Metro Community Action Agency runs a state-funded program to assist low-income households in the greater Detroit area who have fallen behind on their water payments. A new application window for assistance opens each week, said Melissa Davis, who directs the program. All slots are claimed the first day.

“The need is so high,” Davis said.

It’s not just metro Detroit, which has been at the center of the water affordability movement for two decades due to mass shutoffs, suburban flight, and high poverty rates. A 2024 EPA report estimated that between 12.1 million and 19.2 million U.S. households did not have affordable water services, finding that unaffordable water, though trends have since stabilized, was a “widespread and growing issue.” Unlike for energy bills, no national federally-funded water affordability program exists, even as the cost of water infrastructure repairs grows. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic candidate for Senate, supports federal legislation to cap water bills at 2 percent of household income. Current state, local, and utility programs are a patchwork, experts say, and these programs are falling short.

Public interest and water industry groups had high hopes in the last two years that legislation introduced in the Michigan Legislature and in Congress would result in durable programs to reduce the financial burden of drinking water and sewer service for high-need households.

Legislative Impediments in Michigan

Orduño and other observers say that stalled progress in Michigan has several causes. One is a historically unproductive Legislature, where any breakthrough is a challenge. Rep. Matt Hall, speaker of the Republican-led House, cheered the record-low number of bills signed into law in 2025.

Competing water affordability packages have been introduced in the Michigan House and Senate. The House version has not had a hearing, while the Senate package moved out of committee nearly a year ago. But like many bills, it hit the legislative roadblock. 

Both packages have provisions to forgive household water bill debt and prevent shutoffs. The House package requires an income-based bill for households below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. Bills would be capped between 2 and 3 percent of household income. The House version does not come with state funding. But Kristy Meyer of the Water Equals Life Coalition, which favors the House package, argues that utilities could cover the cost with a one-time rate increase. “The idea is that people never get to the point that they need assistance,” Meyer said.

Things are different in the Senate offering, which does contain a funding source – a proposed monthly fee that would begin at $1.25 per meter and then rise to a maximum of $3. It would generate some $71 million in the first 18 months and then about $90 million annually once the program is fully implemented, according to a legislative analysis. That money would reduce water payments for qualifying households and install water-saving fixtures to reduce bills.

Monica Lewis-Patrick of We the People of Detroit, an advocacy group, is fond of saying “affordability not assistance.” In this view, the Wayne Metro program is a form of assistance – households have to be behind on their bills before they can access funds that will zero out their debt.

For Lewis-Patrick, the goal is an affordable bill, one that each household is able to pay on time and in full.

State Sen. Stephanie Chang, a co-sponsor of the Senate package who has worked on water issues since starting in the House in 2015, said she is proud to have moved affordability legislation closer to the goal line. “We have gotten the issue of water affordability farther than it has ever gotten before,” she said.

Someone else will have to shepherd the final steps, though. Because of term limits, Chang cannot seek re-election and will leave the Senate in January.

No Agreement in Congress

Water affordability advocates working on Capitol Hill are in wait-and-see mode until the composition of the next Congress is clear.

“It just seems like there’s a fundamental disconnect in terms of the approach that Republicans and Democrats want to take on affordability,” said Megan Seymour, the legislative affairs director for the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, which represents large water utilities and lobbies for federal water-bill assistance.

Seymour said that Democrats are generally in favor of a federal assistance program but differ on where it should be housed – the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Health and Human Services. Republican members are more likely to back measures that reduce utility costs as a way to keep bill increases in check.

Two bills have been introduced in the House this session – the bipartisan H.R. 4733, which has 43 co-sponsors, and H.R. 8254, a Democratic bill – but neither has been heard in committee. Seymour said that AMWA has been working with Sen. Alex Padilla’s office on bill language but nothing has been introduced in that chamber.

Congress acted once before. During the pandemic, federal lawmakers approved some $1.1 billion for water-bill assistance to be administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. That funding has now expired and the program, which helped 1.5 million households keep their water on or lower their monthly bill, is on hiatus.

The argument for a federal program is two-fold. One, keeping water flowing is a matter of health, safety, and dignity. Two, providing support for those least able to pay allows utilities to increase rates and raise revenue for infrastructure renewal so that water main breaks do not flood communities and force people to boil their water before drinking it. Water advocates argue that they are simply seeking the same treatment as the energy sector, which receives billions of dollars annually from the federal government to subsidize home heating and cooling costs for low-income households.

The nation’s water infrastructure needs are indeed formidable. The pipes and treatment plants that are the foundations of the nation’s water treatment and delivery systems are, in many cases, well past retirement age. Adding to the burden are new rules for PFAS and lead service line replacements, rising cost of equipment and supplies, and the need to secure adequate water in the face of drought. The Value of Water Campaign, a coalition of water groups, projects a $1.6 trillion capital investment need for drinking water and $1.8 trillion for wastewater and stormwater. 

“This is a problem that goes beyond your average price increases and is tied back to a backlog of infrastructure, deferred maintenance, and lack of funding in general for water systems,” Seymour said.

In Michigan, as the legislature prioritizes road repairs, the state needs many billions of dollars in drinking water, sewer, and stormwater investment over the next 20 years. A University of Michigan reckons $39.6 billion in capital spending. The Value of Water figure is more than double, at $85 billion. The Great Lakes Water Authority, Michigan’s largest water provider, asserts that meeting those needs is beyond the means of many communities and will require state-level investment and coordination.

This election season, affordability is the buzz phrase for nearly every campaigner. Their voters, angered by rising bills, want words to be translated into action. An opinion poll conducted in July by EPIC-MRA, a Lansing-based polling firm, found that 75 percent of Michigan respondents support the Senate water affordability package. 

For Chang, those results are an affirmation of her work and a hint that the time is ripe for policy action.

“This is not a theoretical thing,” Chang said about the need for affordable bills. “This is very much a real thing that Michiganders are struggling with on a day-to-day basis.”

Lead image: Past-due water bill in Detroit. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue