ACWA D.C. Advocacy Fighting for Water Funding by Marwan Khalifa May 30, 2025 Voices on Water I had the privilege of working alongside the ACWA East Team earlier this month during a visit to Capitol Hill. I stayed just long enough to feel like a local, automatically referring to coffee shops, restaurants and office locations not only by name, but also by their proximity to either the House or Senate side of the Capitol. Our ACWA East Team, led by Director of Federal Relations Ian Lyle, includes Federal Relations Representative Caleb Raspler and Federal Relations Representative Libby Spekhardt. Together, we met with members of California’s congressional delegation and federal agency officials to advocate for critical water infrastructure funding and policies that affect ACWA member agencies. ACWA also hosted a water policy luncheon that brought together many of the water policy professionals that advocate on behalf of ACWA’s members on federal issues along with representatives from national water organizations and staff from several congressional offices. It was a timely visit. The Trump Administration had just released a summary of its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. The proposal recommends a sharp decrease in water-related investments including estimated cuts of $2.4 billion to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, $609 million for U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, $391 million for forest service operations, and $7 million to eliminate the U.S. Army Corps’ Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, also known as the WIFIA program. During our visits, we highlighted the critical need to ensure and restore funding for these and other water-related investments during the congressional appropriations process. Additionally, we urged Congress to support the Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act. This bill would exempt water systems from PFAS liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability, or CERCLA, and hold polluters — not passive receivers — accountable for PFAS contamination. Another major point of focus included support for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. Established under the first Trump administration, BRIC serves as an annual funding source for pre-disaster mitigation projects. We strongly advocated to maintain funding for this program, especially since investments to prevent natural disasters are more cost-effective than post-disaster recovery. California has received over $1.2 billion from the BRIC program and is among the top three state recipients with the most funding from the program. California water managers have a lot riding on the outcome of multiple issues, and you can count on our ACWA East team to keep your interests front and center in our nation’s capital.
