FUTURE Western Water Infrastructure and Drought Resiliency Act

Furthering Underutilized Technologies and Unleashing Responsible Expenditures for Western Water Infrastructure and Drought Resiliency Act or the FUTURE Western Water Infrastructure and Drought Resiliency Act

This bill addresses water-related resources and infrastructure.

Among other provisions, the bill

• reauthorizes through FY2026 the California Bay-Delta program, the Water Availability and Use Science Program, and a water desalination program;
• reauthorizes through FY2028 the Fisheries Restoration and Irrigation Mitigation program;
• creates various grants for water projects and expands the allowable uses of grants for water recycling and reuse projects;
• establishes a funding source for certain water resources development projects in western states;
• expands the tax exclusion for energy conservation subsidies provided by public utilities to include certain subsidies for water conservation or efficiency measures and stormwater management measures;
• establishes prizes for water technology applications;
• requires the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to use specified funds for water control manual updates for forecast-informed water operations projects; and
• allows certain funding to be used for the remediation of land formerly used to cultivate marijuana.

The Department of the Interior must, within 10 years, make certain streamgages operational. (Streamgages are fixed structures at streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs that measure water level and related streamflow.)

The bill establishes programs related to ecosystem protection and restoration, including programs to (1) incentivize farmers to keep fields flooded during appropriate periods for waterbird habitat creation and maintenance, and (2) prepare drought plans to sustain critically important fisheries.