New Act Mandates GAO Review of EPA Clean Water Assistance Programs, Focusing on 5 Years of Spending and Outcomes

The Water Resources Technical Assistance Review Act of 2025 is essentially a major government audit focused squarely on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) clean water programs. This bill requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—the federal government’s internal watchdog—to launch a comprehensive review of every EPA technical assistance program related to clean water infrastructure. The whole point is to figure out what’s working, what’s overlapping, and who’s actually getting the help they need.

The Deep Dive into Water Assistance

Think of this as pulling back the curtain on how the EPA spends money trying to help communities fix their water systems. Within one year of this bill becoming law, the GAO must start their review of all “covered technical assistance,” which means any EPA program designed to help States, Tribes, and local governments manage their water infrastructure. Crucially, the GAO isn't just looking at the present; they have to look back and describe the activities of these programs over the five-year period before the law was enacted, including who was served and what the outcomes were (SEC. 2).

This review is particularly focused on transparency and effectiveness. The GAO must analyze the EPA’s main “Water Technical Assistance” initiative, specifically examining the criteria used to select technical assistance providers and how those providers are matched up with communities that need help. For a small town struggling with aging pipes, this means the GAO will be checking if the EPA is effectively identifying and reaching out to them, especially if they are an “economically distressed community.” They need to list every community that received help, what kind of assistance they got, how much it cost, and what the results were.

Cutting the Clutter and Building Capacity

One of the most valuable parts of this review for taxpayers is the mandate to analyze any duplication of assistance across different EPA programs. If two different offices are offering the same kind of help, that’s wasted time and money. The GAO will also evaluate how this technical assistance actually helps communities build the capacity to access other, often much larger, EPA water infrastructure funding programs. For a local utility manager, this is key: technical assistance often means getting help with paperwork, engineering studies, and planning, which are the necessary steps before applying for millions in federal grants.

Finally, the bill mandates an assessment of the unmet needs of economically distressed communities. This is an important check to ensure that the assistance isn't just going to communities with the best grant writers, but to those who genuinely need the most help to ensure safe drinking water and effective wastewater treatment. The GAO also has to assess how the EPA is coordinating its efforts with other federal agencies that might also be offering water assistance.

The Five-Year Accountability Plan

This isn't just a one-and-done report. Once the GAO submits their findings and recommendations to Congress, the EPA Administrator has a serious follow-up requirement. Within 90 days of receiving the report, and then annually for the next five years, the EPA must submit a plan detailing exactly what actions they are taking to comply with the GAO’s recommendations (SEC. 2). This long-term accountability measure means the EPA can’t just file the report away; they are legally required to show Congress how they are improving their programs year after year based on the independent findings.