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Five Bills Championed by Rep. Susie Lee Included in Drought and Wildfire Package Headed to House Floor

July 26, 2022

WASHINGTON – As Nevada and the western United States face the worst drought in 12 centuries, Rep. Lee has championed legislation to combat drought, promote water conservation, and invest in western water infrastructure. Five of these bills championed by Rep. Lee are included in the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act, which the House is expected to vote on this week.

These five bills championed by Rep. Lee are included in the drought and wildfire package:

H.R. 8434, The Facilitating Large-Scale Water Recycling and Reuse Projects Act

  • This legislation would build on the funding in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Rep. Lee helped to secure, by providing an additional $700 million to the Competitive Grant Program for Large-Scale Water Recycling included in IIJA. This legislation would also extend the length of the grant program to facilitate the long-term investments needed for these types of large-scale water recycling projects in the drought-stricken Western United States.

H.R. 8415, The Las Vegas Wash Program Extension Act

  • This legislation would provide additional funding to support erosion control projects and critical infrastructure around the Las Vegas Wash. The Las Vegas Wash is the primary drainage channel for the Las Vegas Valley watershed, carrying around 200 million gallons of water to Lake Mead daily. This bill would authorize an additional $25 million for the Las Vegas Wash program to continue to support the work of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Bureau of Reclamation in erosion control, revegetation efforts, scientific studies, and biological restoration activities.

H.R. 7792, The Water Data Act

  • This bipartisan legislation would create a national framework for water data and support collaboration and innovation across federal agencies, state and local entities, and water users. The Water Data Act would unleash the power of water data, address longstanding technical challenges in water data and science, create a national Water Data Council, and establish a new grant program to invest in innovation and new technologies to support water management.

H.R. 5345, The Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act

  • This bipartisan legislation would provide the U.S. Geological Survey—in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and tribal, state, academic, and nonprofit organizations—resources to conduct scientific monitoring and assessments to establish effective management and conservation efforts to preserve essential Saline Lake habitats within the Great Basin network.

H.R. 4832, The Open Access Evapotranspiration Data Act

  • This bipartisan legislation would establish a program under the Department of the Interior (DOI) that uses publicly available data from satellites and weather stations to provide estimates of evapotranspiration (ET), a critical measure of the water that is consumed and removed from a water system. ET represents the largest share of water use in most arid environments around the world. Access to this data has been limited, inconsistent, and expensive, making it difficult for farmers, ranchers, and water managers to use it when making important decisions that could benefit their families and communities. The OpenET program brings together an ensemble of well-established methods to calculate ET at the field-scale across the 17 Western states.

For more information on any of these pieces of legislation, please do not hesitate to reach out.

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