Rep. Bresnahan, colleagues announce ‘major water infrastructure win’ for NEPA

WILKES-BARRE — U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan on Thursday said Northeastern Pennsylvania has had its fair share of floods and the region knows how important strong water infrastructure is in protecting families, businesses, and communities.

This week, Bresnahan and his colleagues on the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 (WRDA) — bipartisan legislation that addresses important water resources needs across the country and delivers new opportunities for communities across Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“For too long, communities across NEPA have been left behind when it came to accessing certain federal water infrastructure resources,” said Bresnahan, R-Dallas Township. “This bipartisan legislation changes that by opening the door for new investments in the Upper Delaware River Basin and giving local governments the tools they need to address critical water and wastewater challenges.”

Bresnahan said the legislation — which passed unanimously — authorizes projects and policies carried out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), including flood protection, water infrastructure improvements, and watershed restoration efforts.

Bresnahan said he championed an expansion of Section 566, which allows the USACE to partner with local governments on critical water infrastructure projects. He said the legislation formally expands eligibility to include the Upper Delaware River Basin, allowing communities across Northeast Pennsylvania to access federal assistance for water and wastewater infrastructure projects for the first time through this program.

Previously, Bresnahan said Section 566 was limited to southeastern Pennsylvania and the Lower Delaware River Basin, leaving many NEPA communities on the outside looking in. He said the bill also increases the program’s authorization from $20 million to $92.69 million, delivering real resources for Northeast Pennsylvania’s water and wastewater needs.

Bresnahan said the USACE manages 14,000 miles of levees, 740 dams, 12,000 miles of inland and intracoastal waterways, and 218 lock chambers. In Northeast Pennsylvania specifically, the USACE manages a wide variety of projects, including those within the Northeast Pennsylvania Environmental Infrastructure Program.

Bresnahan said the legislation has a heavy emphasis on levees and risk management, creating a new Levee Owners Board to advise Congress on levee reliability nationwide and mandating a requirement for new standards of levee risk assessment.

Additionally, he said the bill creates a new Continuing Authority Program letting the Corps modify a completed flood risk project specifically to meet federal accreditation standards — closing the gap that’s kept levees like those protecting Wyoming Valley and the Lackawanna River in limbo.

Bresnahan said the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 also:

• Requires feasibility studies to be scoped around the local sponsor’s actual goals and reviewed concurrently across Corps district, division, and headquarters levels instead of sequentially, cutting the timeline for studies.

• Reauthorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) High Hazard Potential Dam grant program.

• Allows non-Federal sponsors to contribute additional funds to keep a project moving if it exceeds its authorized cost cap, without increasing the federal share, protecting projects from stalling out on a technicality.

• Adds “rural communities” as an explicit priority category for Corps floodplain management technical assistance and expands the Planning Assistance to States program to include structural integrity assessments, giving small NEPA boroughs and townships access to Corps expertise they couldn’t otherwise afford.