Watershed Results Act

Watershed Results Act

This bill provides funding for the Department of the Interior, in coordination with the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, to establish a total of not less than two and not more than five watershed pilot programs in certain western states that use pay-for-performance contracts.

Interior is required to designate a management team for each watershed pilot project. Each team must develop and implement a five-year plan for carrying out the applicable pilot.

Interior and the management team for each watershed pilot must use advance watershed analytics throughout the planning, implementation, measuring, and monitoring of projects within the pilot. This technical analysis must be conducted to identify quantifiable outcomes, costs, feasibility, and impacts of the projects before making funding available for a watershed pilot.

Further, Interior and the management team for a watershed pilot are required to set and publish minimum per-unit outcome prices. Interior must also enter into a pay-for-performance contract to achieve outcome-based goals described in the plan developed for the pilot.

Interior must also submit specified annual and five-year reports to Congress.