43 U.S.C. § 373e — Bureau of Reclamation site security

(a) Treatment of capital costs. Costs the Secretary of the Interior spends to physically fortify Bureau of Reclamation facilities for increased security needs after September 11, 2001 — including building, changing, upgrading, or replacing those fortifications — are not reimbursable, meaning water users don't have to pay them back. (b) Treatment of security-related operation and maintenance costs. (1) Reimbursable costs. Each fiscal year, the Secretary may count as reimbursable operation and maintenance costs no more than $18,900,000 (adjusted each year after fiscal year 2008 for the Consumer Price Index) spent on things like more guards and patrols, training, patrols by local and tribal police, and operating, maintaining, and replacing security equipment and facility fortifications, all tied to the post-9/11 response. (2) Costs collected through water rates. For the Central Valley Project in California specifically, site security costs charged to irrigation and municipal/industrial water users must be collected only by including them in the operation and maintenance water rates. (c) Transparency and report to Congress. (1) The Secretary may develop, with project beneficiaries, policies and procedures for collecting the reimbursable costs in (b), following (2) and (3). (2) When the Secretary identifies a Reclamation facility for a security measure, the Secretary must give beneficiaries written notice explaining why the measure is needed, how it will be planned and carried out, and summarizing the legal and administrative requirements involved. (3) The Secretary must let beneficiaries consult on planning, designing, and building the security measure, and must set timeframes for that consultation together with them. Before spending money under (b), the Secretary must consider any cost-saving ideas a consulting beneficiary suggests, and must give that beneficiary a timely written response describing any proposed action, plus regular updates on costs and status. (5) Each year, the Secretary must report to the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on that year's site security actions, including federal and non-federal spending and a five-year outlook, broken out by pre- and post-9/11 costs. (d) Pre-September 11, 2001 security cost levels. Security costs at the level that existed before September 11, 2001, remain reimbursable as they always were.