Oregon lawmakers may overhaul grant-making policies for water projects, which an environmental group worries would undermine public benefits in the name of improving efficiency.

The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Agriculture Committee have introduced House Bill 3364, which would revise numerous rules for grants used to develop water supply projects and evaluate their feasibility.

In the aggregate, the bill’s purpose is to streamline grant procedures and get the money out the door sooner, said Rep. Helm, D-Beaverton, the committee’s co-chair, who sponsored the proposal with fellow co-chair Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane.

“In the midst of all these technical changes, that’s the intent,” Helm said during a recent legislative hearing.

Helm said that HB 3364 is a “work in progress” that seeks to make the grant process “more nimble” but is likely to be amended.

“I think the consensus is these funds are doing good things on the ground,” he said.

However, some members of the Oregon Water Resources Commission — which approves the grant funding — have criticized the decision-making process as being too exclusive.

For example, water supply development proposals must currently meet minimum scores for environmental, economic and social benefits.

This has raised concerns that otherwise worthwhile projects are precluded from funding simply because they have a highly specific function, such as enhancing drinking water systems that don’t generate revenues.

HB 3364 would simplify the criteria for how proposals are ranked by a “technical review team” and alter how it makes recommendations to the Water Resources Commission, which has drawn objections from the Waterwatch of Oregon environmental nonprofit.

“A wholesale reworking of the funding structure is not warranted,” said Kimberley Priestley, senior policy analyst for the group.

The nonprofit argues the proposal would stop requiring that projects achieve the maximum public benefit and would eliminate the minimum scores for environmental, economic and social benefits, replacing these criteria with other, poorly defined standards.

The existing decision-making procedures for water supply development grants were developed after extensive negotiations, both by lawmakers in 2013 and by an advisory committee of water users, conservationists and others in 2015, Priestley said.

“Over a decade later, from our perspective, the program is largely working,” she said.

The bill received lukewarm praise from the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts, who believe some provisions may be helpful but could be strengthened.

For example, the bill would give applicants more time to develop certain “water management and conservation plans,” but irrigation districts would prefer that requirement be scrapped altogether, said April Snell, the group’s executive director.

“We find it to be a disincentive for districts who don’t have those plans and aren’t otherwise required to have them,” Snell said.

The organization is taking a neutral position on HB 3364 but will suggest possible revisions once its members have a chance to thoroughly vet the proposal, she said.

“We do see some improvements that would be beneficial to our members,” she said.