Congress expands water cleanup fund to restore wetlands and marshes
H.R. 1261 — Land and Water Conservation Fund Water Amendments Act of 2025 · Filed by Brian Mast (R-FL) · Introduced Feb 12, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill expands the Land and Water Conservation Fund to allow the federal government to provide grants to states for water quality improvement projects, particularly those restoring natural water systems like wetlands and marshes. States can now use LWCF money for water quality work alongside traditional outdoor recreation projects, and the federal government can credit state spending toward the required local cost-share.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is straightforward: it redirects existing conservation fund authority toward water quality projects. The title accurately describes the function — no misdirection or hidden mechanism.
What the text implies
- Expands LWCF authority without new appropriations — actual funding depends on Congress allocating money to the program, which is not guaranteed and may displace outdoor recreation funding.
- State water quality control plans (developed under Clean Water Act § 303) become the trigger for federal LWCF eligibility, creating a soft linkage between state environmental planning and federal grant access.
- The non-federal cost-share credit mechanism may allow states to count existing environmental spending toward the match, effectively leveraging state budgets into federal grants.
- Limitation to 'natural hydrological systems' excludes gray infrastructure (pipes, treatment plants, dams) — the bill funds only ecosystem restoration, not traditional water infrastructure.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill expands public funding for water quality restoration without restricting citizen rights or creating new liabilities. It directs federal conservation dollars toward environmental remediation that benefits public health and ecosystem integrity, with explicit safeguards against federal overreach into state water regulation.
Who stands to gain
- state environmental agencies
- environmental consulting firms
- wetland restoration contractors
- nonprofit conservation organizations
Named in the bill
Secretary of the Interior, Land and Water Conservation Fund, Environmental Protection Agency, States (as grant recipients), Federal Water Pollution Control Act § 303, Section 200305 of Title 54 USC
Where it stands
- Feb 12, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 12, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
4 lobbying clients named this bill on 5 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $765,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 22 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 72% of bills with at least one filing.
Brian Mast, the sponsor, reported $378,866 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Heart Association — $400,000 on 1 filing
- Open Space Institute, Inc. — $155,000 on 1 filing
- Cure Sma — $150,000 on 2 filings
- Glaukos Corporation — $60,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,821 characters) on Aug 19, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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