Modernizing America's Water Resource Management and Water Infrastructure

The order establishes an interagency Water Policy Committee — called the Water Subcabinet — co-chaired by the Secretary of the Interior and the EPA Administrator, with membership including the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, and the Army. The Subcabinet is directed to produce four sequential deliverables: within 90 days, identify all existing federal water-related interagency working groups and recommend which to consolidate; within 120 days, submit a comprehensive action report covering water storage and drought resilience, water quality and restoration, drinking water and flood control systems, and water data and forecasting; and within 150 days (two separate tasks), recommend priorities for integrated water infrastructure planning and propose actions to improve recruitment, training, and retention of water-sector professionals.

The order does not itself revise any regulation, reallocate funding, or change water law. Every operative outcome — consolidation of working groups, policy changes, infrastructure priorities — is contingent on future recommendations being accepted and acted upon by CEQ, OMB, OSTP, and other White House offices. Annual status updates to those offices are required beginning one year after the section 5 report is submitted.

Federal agencies with water-related responsibilities, particularly the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, and the Army Corps of Engineers, and EPA. State, local, tribal, and territorial governments and water-sector professionals are the intended downstream beneficiaries of improved federal coordination and workforce support recommendations.

Water utilities, irrigation districts, flood-control authorities, and communities facing drought or contamination challenges may eventually benefit from more coordinated federal investment and streamlined permitting — but only after agencies produce and implement the plans this order sets in motion.

The Water Subcabinet acts as the central coordinating body, with Interior or EPA providing administrative support. It reports up to three White House-level offices — CEQ, OMB, and OSTP — through a staggered series of deliverables over 150 days, then annually. No enforcement mechanism is created; the order is implemented subject to the availability of appropriations and existing agency authority. A severability-style general provisions section preserves existing agency legal authorities and creates no judicially enforceable rights.