Nation expands water reuse programs and removes old unused projects.
S. 3738 — MORE WATER Act · Filed by Alex Padilla (D-CA) · Introduced Jan 29, 2026 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill gives more money to water reuse programs. It raises spending limits for water infrastructure projects. It sets up a new Water Conveyance Improvement Program. Projects that get no money for 8 or more years are canceled. Congress must vote to keep them.
Who it affects
People in areas that need more water gain access to money for water reuse. Water utilities, cities, farms, and nature groups that work on water projects gain funding.
One thing to notice
Old projects that sit unused for 8 years get canceled unless Congress votes to save them.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Jan 29, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 29, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.”
- Mar 17, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. Hearings held”
- Jul 29, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
6 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 7 reports from Mar 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $550,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 14 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 82% of bills with any report.
Alex Padilla, who sponsored the bill, received $188,500 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Association of California Water Agencies — $250,000 in 2 reports
- Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — $190,000 in 1 report
- Eastern Municipal Water District — $50,000 in 1 report
- City of Sacramento — $20,000 in 1 report
- Los Angeles County Sanitation District — $20,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- water reuse — cleaning and using water again instead of throwing it away
- Water Conveyance Improvement Program — a new plan to fix systems that move water from place to place
- infrastructure — the big systems and structures that serve a community, like pipes and dams
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (8,564 characters) on Aug 9, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 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 Mar 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 2026-11-01.
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