Jessica Kramer, the nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Water, said she would work to ensure “a stable pendulum” on regulations and staff within the office, but when The Driller asked Kramer to clarify what she means by “a stable pendulum,” she declined to respond.

Kramer made her comments on April 8, 2025 at the National Water Policy Fly-In held in D.C. hosted by several water-sector entities at which she outlined some of her plans for the Office of Water if she is confirmed, including instituting a speedier and streamlined regulatory process, and maintaining “the experts” in the office who can “help us solve” problems in the water sector.

The remarks about regulatory and staff stability in the Office of Water were made by Kramer because of the federal-workforce reductions that number in the thousands at various agencies instituted by President Donald Trump. Furthermore, at her nomination hearing held on March 26, 2025, before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), Kramer outlined the approach she will implement as head of the Office of Water. The approach Kramer presented is to delegate the implementation of federal programs to the states, which is called “cooperative federalism.”

When administrations change, policy priorities shift that open and streamline opportunities, including “cutting red tape,” said Kramer, who added as a nominee to be assistant administrator of the Office of Water, she and her staff are already “in the early stages” of identifying policy priorities, she said.

However, she stressed that water-sector officials should “rest assured that if I am confirmed,” existing programs will not be changed for the sake of instituting a change. “If it ain’t broke, we’re not fixing it” said Kramer who added that the Office of Water will “be aimed at ensuring that we can make things better,” which has prompted the Office to plan “listening sessions” that “cross a wide range of stakeholders” in order to help “chart our path,” she said.

Those stakeholders need to “tell us what’s working; tell us what’s not working; tell us about partnerships that we should be exploring, because it will help us,” Kramer said. Furthermore, stakeholders can identify “if there is a policy in place that spans a little bit outside the statutory margins”…“our policy priority is to take it back to the fundamental law,” so stakeholders might be able to “help us solve this problem,” she said.

In addition, the Office also wants to know “what can we do to streamline any review that we have with respect to funding mechanisms,” Kramer said. The Office will work to ensure funding for water-sector programs is being disbursed “as fast as they possibly can,” so the water needed “to keep the country moving forward” is available.

That includes examining EPA policies. “We’re reducing the time” it takes for EPA to examine an issue, with a focus on “ensuring that we’re not putting in steps that we primarily don’t have the legal authority to do,” she said.

Among the policy areas being scrutinized by Kramer’s staff includes the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) regulation, according to Kramer. Because PFAS chemicals can build up in living things and cause various health issues, during 2024 EPA issued two final rules, the first setting drinking water standards for five individual PFAS substances; and the second designating PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances. The area of the PFAS rule being reviewed is what is required for a PFAS intent use claim, in order to determine “where can we (EPA) provide additional possibilities on that front?” Kramer said.

Additional, there are challenges within the water sector at attracting and retaining talent leading to concerns about having a “strong water workforce” within that sector, leading to questions as to how EPA might help that sector address those challenges. Kramer responded that during the first Trump administration, in which she served, the EPA issued “the water workforce initiative,” and she is “really hopeful that we can revisit that and we can update it with the challenges that y'all are facing.”