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To amend the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary to award grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to eligible entities to establish, maintain, or improve activities related to the detection and monitoring of infectious diseases through wastewater for public health emergency preparedness and response purposes, and for other purposes.
Summary
The bill expands the National Wastewater Surveillance System to detect and monitor disease-causing pathogens in wastewater for public health emergency preparedness. The system would track pathogens including SARS-CoV-2, influenza, mpox, dengue, West Nile virus, and respiratory syncytial virus through coordination between the CDC and federal, state, and local agencies. The bill authorizes $150 million per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 to support wastewater surveillance activities. The bill includes a provision clarifying that wastewater utilities and service providers are not required to comply with requests for wastewater surveillance.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
2 cosponsors
Money behind the sponsor
Top reported contributors to Robert Garcia’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.
- NULL $14,250
- WATERFORD PROPERTY COMPANY $13,200
- SHANGRI-LA INDUSTRIES $9,900
- CURTIN MARITIME $9,900
- LEE ANDREWS GROUP $7,600
Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Robert Garcia → · Outside spending →
Actions (2)
- Jan 28, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. · house
- Jan 28, 2025 Introduced in House
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 28, 2025
Mr. Garcia of California (for himself and Mr. Bacon) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
A BILL
To amend the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary to award grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to eligible entities to establish, maintain, or improve activities related to the detection and monitoring of infectious diseases through wastewater for public health emergency preparedness and response purposes, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Surveilling Effluent Water for Epidemic Response Act” or the “SEWER Act”.
SEC. 2. NATIONAL WASTEWATER SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM.
(a) In General.—Subtitle C of title XXVIII of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300hh-31 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“SEC. 2827. NATIONAL WASTEWATER SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM.
“(a) National Wastewater Surveillance System.—The Secretary, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and in coordination with Federal departments and agencies and relevant State and local departments and agencies, shall expand, intensify, and coordinate the activities of the National Wastewater Surveillance System to detect and monitor pathogens in wastewater, such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza, mpox, dengue, West Nile virus, and respiratory syncytial virus.
“(b) Authorization of Appropriations.—To carry out this section, there is authorized to be appropriated $150,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2026 through 2030, to remain available until expended.”.
(b) Rule of Construction.—Nothing in the amendment made by subsection (a) shall be construed as requiring a wastewater utility or service provider to comply with a request for wastewater surveillance. <all>
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