# Plain Language Summary: Shoreline Health Oversight, Restoration, Resilience, and Enhancement Act

This bill makes protecting America's coastlines and riverbanks a top priority for the federal government, with a focus on preparing communities for climate change and erosion. Right now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers handles various water projects, but this bill elevates shoreline and riverbank protection to be one of their main missions alongside flood control. It applies to beaches, the Great Lakes, bays, and river systems across the country.

The bill makes it easier and cheaper for communities to get federal help protecting their shores. For studies about potential protection projects, communities would pay 20 percent of the cost instead of higher amounts, and economically disadvantaged areas would only pay 10 percent. When it comes to actually building protection projects, the bill offers similar breaks for poorer communities. It also encourages using natural solutions like wetland restoration and living shorelines rather than just building walls and barriers, since these approaches are often better for ecosystems and can be more effective long-term.

The bill specifically prioritizes help for several regions including Delaware Bay beaches, Louisiana's coastal areas, the Great Lakes, Oregon's coast, and several river systems. It also changes the rules for "beach nourishment" projects—where sand is regularly added to beaches to prevent erosion—making sure these projects get the same level of ongoing federal support as flood control projects. For communities that can't afford to pay their share upfront, the bill allows them to pay later or receive credit toward future projects instead of having to pay everything immediately.

Shoreline Health Oversight, Restoration, Resilience, and Enhancement Act

Blunt Rochester, Lisa

Shoreline Health Oversight, Restoration, Resilience, and Enhancement Act This bill provides for the development of water and water-related resources projects and activities with a particular emphasis on those carried out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Among other things, the bill <ul> <li>revises and modifies the flood mitigation and riverine restoration program to include coverage of coastal storm damage;</li> <li>authorizes the Corps to carry out specified water resources development and conservation projects in accordance with plans laid out in designated reports or decision documents; </li> <li>authorizes the Department of the Army to continue periodic nourishment for specified projects for coastal storm risk management for an additional period of 50 years; </li> <li> authorizes the Army to use funds for water resources development purposes to carry out, at full federal expense, a measure located on, or benefitting, federal land under the administrative jurisdiction of another federal agency under specified conditions; </li> <li>authorizes the Army to provide in advance the federal share of funds required for the acquisition of land, easements, and rights-of-way for, and the relocation of, certain projects;</li> <li>directs the Army to establish a program to provide environmental assistance to nonfederal interests in the Chattahoochee River Basin; and </li> <li>requires the Army to expedite the replacement of the Mississippi River mat sinking unit.</li> </ul>