Hickenlooper rallies senators to help accelerate Colorado River compromise

Keeping the Colorado River flowing will require concessions from seven sparring states — but Congress may have the financial mobility to help get them there, according to Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).

“We are working in a bipartisan fashion at this point,” he told The Hill on Monday. “There’s a recognition that a lot of people’s livelihoods are at stake, and there’s a real urgency.”

Hickenlooper is at the helm of the new Colorado River Caucus — a cohort of senators from both sides of the aisle who intend to help the states agree on consumption cutbacks.

Members of the group include representatives from all seven Colorado River states: California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.

“I think that we still have an opportunity,” Hickenlooper said. “Time is of the essence, but I think the best solution would be a seven-state solution.”

Negotiations among the states have been taking place for months, following a June call from Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton for additional conservation. 

After missing a mid-August deadline to propose strategies, the states agreed to a new target date of Jan. 31 — aware that the Bureau could impose cuts itself if they again failed to do so.

What ended up materializing were two competing proposals: a joint deal from six out of the seven states and a separate offer from California.

The six-state proposal focuses on spreading the burden for evaporation losses across the river. As the waterway’s biggest user, California would face the greatest supply cuts in this scenario.

The Golden State’s proposal, which includes larger cutbacks for Arizona than for California, relies on voluntary measures that would serve “to minimize the risk of legal challenge.”

“For a variety of reasons, California couldn’t get there,” Hickenlooper said.

“That doesn’t mean we should walk away,” he continued. “That’s part of what our Colorado River Caucus in the U.S Senate is all about — trying to find that elusive compromise that everybody can get behind.”

While the Colorado senator acknowledged that the federal government is “not going to solve this” and that states must work together, he did identify a key role that Congress could play.

“The federal government has carrots and sticks, and can provide a framework and resources to find and help accelerate a compromise solution,” Hickenlooper said.

Within these resources, he continued, is a $4 billion allocation from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, for drought mitigation in the Colorado River system.

Beyond those funds are $8.3 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law designated for water projects. Recognizing that this sum isn’t entirely for Colorado River purposes, Hickenlooper stressed that there is “quite a lot of freedom with that money.”

“Part of our desire is that senators can help facilitate this conversation and say, if you guys are all working together, there will be more resources, more support,” he said.

Coming together in such a way, the senator contended, would heighten the probability of overall success and help reduce the hardship incurred by multi-generation ranchers and farmers.

Other methods of conversation for which Hickenlooper has long advocated are voluntary and temporary compensation initiatives, in which users receive funds to leave their lands fallow.

Hickenlooper’s Colorado River Basin Conservation Act, which he introduced in July with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), was ultimately included in the fiscal 2023 omnibus bill in late December. 

This step enabled the reauthorization of the System Conservation Pilot Program, which offers compensation to users in the Upper Colorado River Basin, in exchange for cuts in water usage.

On Monday afternoon, the Bureau of Reclamation said it would be allocating up to $125 million to support the relaunch of this program.

This sum is part of a $728 million investment that also aims to bring clean drinking water to tribal and rural communities and improve supply reliability across the country, the agency stated.

The Biden administration this fall launched another compensation program, allowing select Colorado River users in the Lower Basin to receive federal funds in return for conserving water.

Because the West operates on a “water rights” system in which higher priority rights holders must use or lose their water, they have little incentive to conserve, Hickenlooper explained.  

This also means that there is no incentive to find more efficient ways of moving resources from one place to another or cultivating crops that require less water, according to the senator.

“They’d rather hold on to as much of the rights as they can,” he said. “We’re at the point now where we want to begin looking at some of these traditions.”

The West has yet to “put a premium on efficiency,” but this is one area in which the federal government could consider providing aid, Hickenlooper suggested.

While ideally, all seven states would come together to make fair changes in allocations, the senator acknowledged that this may be impossible due to “the litigious nature of water.”

“Water’s for fighting; whiskey’s for drinking,” he quipped.

Although it remains unclear whether the states will cooperate on cuts or if the government will step in unilaterally, Hickenlooper voiced his support for continued work on a compromise.

“As long as people are still at the table, we ought to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and see where we can get to,” he said.