S. 3737 — GROW SMART Act

This section establishes a new section 201A within Title II of the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991, authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to provide technical and financial assistance—using funds available under the title and subsection (g)—to qualified applicants for planning voluntary projects that incorporate innovative drought-response approaches. (As background, Title II authorizes emergency drought relief measures in Reclamation states and areas.) Such projects must (1) keep agricultural land in production while supporting rural incomes and employment, (2) provide affordable or redundant water supplies, shared storage, or other benefits, and (3) rely on non-Federal funding for long-term implementation. Innovative approaches must be new or unproven locally and include voluntary water-sharing or financial agreements between agricultural and non-agricultural parties; adoption of water-saving practices or commodities (e.g., hydroponics, agrovoltaics, agroforestry, gravity-powered drip irrigation, regenerative agriculture, or concentrating production on reduced acreage for equal or greater returns); or other voluntary consumptive-use reductions, but exclude substantial fallowing or widely used crops. Qualified applicants are primarily voluntary partnerships between agricultural entities (including irrigation districts) and entities such as municipal water providers, industrial or commercial users (e.g., data centers), states or subdivisions, or nonprofits (with no limits on Tribal participation); the Secretary may also fund certain standalone applicants (e.g., states, Tribes, agricultural entities) using innovative approaches or advancing groundwater/lake recovery, giving priority to those facing or projecting 40% or greater reductions in water supplies, groundwater, or freshwater inflows. Applications are limited to brief descriptions aligning with statutory priorities (e.g., dedicating saved water to others in the district, municipality, Tribe, or community), without requiring supporting reports.