The Rundown
- DOE completes its environmental review of a floating solar panel test project intended for a Colorado reservoir.
- CDC data shows Legionnaires’ disease cases increased in 2025 to their second-highest rate on record.
- Water bills in Congress include rural water system authorization, restoring EPA’s social cost of carbon, and reauthorizing western water programs.
- GAO recommends Congress fix a red-tape problem for Indian Health Service water infrastructure projects.
- GAO also assesses FEMA’s management of a climate-resilient infrastructure grant program.
And lastly, the push continues for a permanent federal water-bill assistance program.
“We shouldn’t have to beg every single year to have funding to make sure people have running clean water.” – Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) making the case for a permanent federal program to assist low-income households with their water bills. Tlaib was speaking at the Healing Our Waters Great Lakes conference in Detroit on September 25. Tlaib introduced legislation in April to establish a $20-billion-a-year permanent program similar to a temporary pandemic-era arrangement.
By the Numbers
2.9: Cases of Legionnaires’ disease per 100,000 people in the U.S. in 2025, according to recently released figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the second-highest annual case rate for the waterborne respiratory disease, just behind 2018.
In context: Legionnaires’ Disease Surfaced 50 Years Ago. It’s Still Killing People.
News Briefs
Water Bills in Congress
The end of the 119th Congress approaches, but representatives still are introducing new legislation. Existing bills are threading the process.
- President Trump signed a bill that reauthorizes federal involvement in building infrastructure to deliver water to the Fort Peck Reservation and nearby communities in northeastern Montana. The water system is supposed to be completed by 2028.
- The House and Senate have passed versions of a bill that amends a water rights settlement for the Crow Tribe of south-central Montana. The amendment will give the tribe more flexibility in carrying out a water-delivery project that was part of the settlement.
- Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) introduced a bill to reinstate EPA’s environmental health regulations for air pollution. The agency in the second Trump administration has weakened or ditched rules on mercury, greenhouse gases, methane, and others. The bill would also require the agency to put a dollar value on pollution reduction – called the social cost of carbon – when making rules.
- Oregon’s Democratic senators introduced a bill to reauthorize Bureau of Reclamation programs for aquatic ecosystem restoration, water infrastructure grants, and watershed management.
Floating Solar
The Department of Energy completed its environmental review for a floating solar PV test project proposed for Welton Reservoir, in Arvada, Colorado. It found no significant impacts.
The department intends to fund the project that seeks to increase the energy-generating potential of solar panels on reservoirs and decrease the cost.
Noria Energy Holdings is the company behind the project.
Studies and Reports
FEMA’s Climate Infrastructure Grants
FEMA could improve its process for awarding grants to communities for building climate-appropriate infrastructure, according to a Government Accountability Office audit.
The Trump administration cancelled the $4.8 billion BRIC program in 2025 before a federal judge ordered the agency earlier this year to bring it back. BRIC is supposed to fund infrastructure that reduces the damages from natural hazards like severe storms and drought.
Even before the temporary shutdown FEMA wasn’t managing the program well, the GAO says. That includes slow reviews of funding applications, which could take 10 to 13 months on average for infrastructure projects.
“According to community officials we met with, long time periods between when FEMA selected a sub-application for further review and when it awarded the subgrant could have negative impacts, such as increased costs,” the audit notes.
Better Bureaucracy for Tribal Water
Tribal communities need about $6 billion of infrastructure investment to provide safe drinking water, the Indian Health Service estimates.
Yet red tape is inflating the cost of drinking water projects, according to another GAO audit.
Commitments to spend federal funds on drinking water infrastructure in tribal lands can be impeded by collisions between legal codes and on-the-ground realities.
The GAO notes that IHS is allowed to build infrastructure to serve Indian homes. But some homes in the project area might be owned by someone who is not a tribal member even if tribal members are living there. By statute, IHS is not allowed to connect that home.
One fix required 80 hours of staff time to find $8,000 for the non-covered portion of a drinking water project.
GAO recommends that Congress allow IHS to grant exemptions to this membership requirement if the administrative costs for the alternative are too high.
On the Radar
El Niño and California
Today, September 28, at 1:00 p.m. ET, NOAA will host a webinar on potential impacts to California from the very strong El Niño this winter.
Michael Anderson, the state climatologist, will present. Register here.
Senate Energy and Water Bills
On September 30, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will consider 54 bills related to energy, water, and land conservation. The bills include wild and scenic river designations, aquifer recharge, and drought response.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
