Federal grants to help rural water systems survive disasters
S. 1019 — Rural Water System Disaster Preparedness and Assistance Act · Filed by Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 13, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a federal grant program to help rural water and wastewater systems prepare for and respond to disasters. It directs the Secretary of Agriculture to fund nonprofit organizations with expertise in water-system emergency response to provide on-site technical assistance, disaster planning, equipment repair, and coordination with FEMA and state emergency agencies when disasters strike.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is straightforward: it establishes a grant program to fund nonprofit technical-assistance providers who help rural water systems prepare for and respond to disasters. This is core infrastructure resilience, not a tax carve-out, immunity grant, or hidden rider.
What the text implies
- Grant recipients must be nonprofits with demonstrated nationwide experience — this may concentrate funding among a small number of established organizations, potentially limiting competition or excluding smaller regional providers.
- The bill does not specify appropriation amounts or timelines, meaning the program's actual scope depends on future budget decisions; without funding, the authority to establish the program is symbolic.
- Rural water systems are often operated by small municipal utilities or cooperatives with limited administrative capacity; the bill funds technical assistance but does not directly fund infrastructure repairs or upgrades, leaving capital-improvement gaps unfilled.
Who it affects
Rural residents depend on water systems for basic survival; disasters that disable these systems create immediate public-health crises. The bill funds technical expertise and emergency response capacity that rural communities often lack, reducing service disruption and health risks during disasters. No apparent restrictions on citizen rights or remedies.
Who stands to gain
- nonprofit organizations with water/wastewater emergency-response expertise
- rural water and wastewater utilities (indirect benefit via technical support)
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), State emergency management agencies, Rural water and wastewater systems, Nonprofit emergency-response organizations, Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Mar 13, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 13, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $420,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 13 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 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Catherine Cortez Masto, the sponsor, reported $298,634 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Rural Water Association — $420,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI scored this bill from its title only — the full text has not been read; 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 Jun 2026 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal grants to help rural water systems survive disasters” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1019 Report an error
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