Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Water Agency and Transparency Enhancement Review (WATER) Act”.
Water Agency and Transparency Enhancement Review (WATER) Act
A BILL
To codify certain sections of Executive Order 14181 relating to emergency measures to provide water resources in California and improve disaster response in certain areas.
Sec. 2 Plans to address regulatory hurdles for major water-supply and storage projects
Identification of major water-Supply and storage projects— The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce shall identify all ongoing or potential major water-supply and storage projects (including surface and ground water storage projects, aquifer recharge projects, and State conveyance projects) within the State of California for which they have joint responsibility under section 7(a) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1536(a)) or individual responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.).
Plans—
Designation of compliance officials— With respect to the projects identified under subsection (a), the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce shall each designate one Federal official to coordinate each agency’s respective compliance responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.).
Identification of regulatory hurdles— Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this section, each Federal official designated under paragraph (1) shall—
identify any regulatory hurdles that unduly burden each project identified under subsection (a);
identify any recent changes in applicable State or Federal law that may impact such projects from a regulatory perspective, including changes made by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (Public Law 118–5); and
develop a proposed plan, for review by the Secretaries, to appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind any regulations or procedures that unduly burden such projects and are not necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.
Coordination— In carrying out paragraph (2), each Federal official designated under paragraph (1) shall coordinate and share all appropriate information that will enable improved efficiencies.
Unduly burden defined— In this section, the term unduly burden means to unnecessarily obstruct, delay, curtail, impede, or otherwise impose significant costs on the permitting, utilization, transmission, delivery, or supply of water resources and water infrastructure.