Healthy H2O Act
The Healthy H2O Act would create a new federal grant program, the Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Assistance Program, within the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act. The program would provide grants to eligible end users in rural areas (and eligible nonprofit organizations acting on their behalf) to purchase, install, and maintain point-of-entry or point-of-use drinking water quality improvement products. It emphasizes interim, on-site solutions for communities facing immediate drinking water quality challenges (including contaminants like lead, arsenic, nitrate/nitrite, PFAS, and chrome-6) while longer-term infrastructure projects proceed. Grants would cover up-front costs, installation by qualified installers, ongoing maintenance, and related water quality testing, with protections to ensure standards and consumer protections. Funds are limited to households and small facilities with income below a threshold and would be administered by a USDA official, with annual reporting to Congress and a five-year funding window of 2026–2030.
Key Points
- 1Definitions and standards: The bill defines key terms (approved installation, approved maintenance, certified filter components, eligible drinking water quality improvement products, eligible end users, eligible grant recipients, health contaminants, qualified third-party installers, qualified water quality tests, and third-party certifiers) and requires products/components to meet third-party certification standards (e.g., NSF/ANSI and related standards).
- 2Program creation and administration: The Secretary of Agriculture would promulgate regulations within 120 days of enactment to establish the Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Assistance Program and administer grants to eligible recipients.
- 3Eligible uses of grants: Grants may be used for purchasing eligible products or replacement filter components, approved installation by qualified installers, approved maintenance, and qualified water quality tests to support the described products and services.
- 4Eligibility and access: Eligible end users are rural residents (homeowners, renters, small multi-unit buildings with 25 units or fewer, licensed child-care facilities, or similar facilities) with a demonstrable health contaminant need (via a qualified water quality test or other accepted documentation).
- 5Income and grant limitations: Grants cannot exceed reasonable costs, and no grant can be issued to an end user with household income above 150% of the state’s median nonmetropolitan income. Grants are targeted to lower-income rural households.
- 6Grant administration and allocation: A designated USDA officer would administer the grants. Funding decisions must address a range of water quality challenges, prioritize private well sources, and ensure reasonable access for end users and nonprofit intermediaries.
- 7Reporting and oversight: The Secretary must report to Congress annually (and publicly) on barriers to universal safe drinking water, contaminants, technologies, program outcomes, product use, testing, and related health and economic benefits, with input from NGOs and certification bodies.
- 8Funding level: Authorization of appropriations of $10 million per fiscal year from 2026 through 2030.