Water Monitoring and Tracking Essential Resources (Water) Data Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. LEE of Nevada. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of Representative Neguse's H.R. 5770, the WATER Data Improvement Act.

The WATER Data Improvement Act represents a bipartisan approach to ensuring that water resource managers have the data they need to provide communities and the environment with access to safe, clean water.

The legislation will promote successful drought resiliency strategies, strengthen essential programs, and increase water quality by reauthorizing the U.S. Geological Survey's national groundwater resources monitoring network, its Federal priority streamgage network, and improved water estimation, measurement, and monitoring grant funding through 2028.

The impacts of these programs and grants have been transformative. The national groundwater resources monitoring network brings together Federal, State, local, and Tribal agencies' groundwater monitoring efforts while the Federal priority streamgage network measures streamflow information to promote access to crucial groundwater and streamflow data for water resource managers. The legislation would also provide grants to develop, improve, and implement new methodologies and technologies for collecting, analyzing, and delivering water resource data.

With 2024 on track to be the hottest year on record and many communities throughout the West facing a historic drought crisis, it is imperative that we provide water resource managers with the tools that they need to collect and provide accurate data to develop and implement innovative water management and conservation plans.
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Ms. LEE of Nevada. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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