Bipartisan Senate group embarks on Colorado River tour as states spar over cutbacks

A bipartisan group of senators from Western states embarked Monday on a downstream tour of the Colorado River — in a show of support for the seven states tasked with negotiating consumption cutbacks.

The tour, which began near the river’s headwaters in Colorado, will include stops at critical infrastructure sites and meetings with local stakeholders in both the Upper and Lower basin.

“We’re in the middle of a 1,200-year drought,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who organized the tour, said at a Monday press conference. “We’re going to have to find a way for the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states to come together.”

Deliberations among Colorado River basin states are currently at a standstill after dragging on for nearly a year — since Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton called for an increase in water conservation measures last June.

Touton is accompanying Bennet on the tour, along with Upper Basin Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.). The Upper Basin includes Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, while Arizona, Nevada and California make up the Lower Basin.

“We will be joined as we proceed down the river by other members of the U.S. Senate in the Lower Basin states,” Lummis said at the press conference. 

“We’ll be working with them to inform ourselves about these unique partnerships that will make up the future of the Colorado River for all of us,” she added.

The lawmakers are all members of Hickenlooper’s Colorado River Caucus — a bipartisan cohort of senators from all seven states who intend to help local leaders agree on reductions.

“There’s no Republican or Democratic water,” Hickenlooper said on Monday. “We’re all in this together.”

Following Touton’s June call for cutbacks, the seven basin states missed an initial mid-August deadline to present a unified plan. They then 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 rival 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. As the Colorado River’s biggest user, California would face the biggest cuts in this scenario.

The Golden State’s plan, which includes larger reductions for Arizona than for California, relies on voluntary efforts and adheres to the legal terms of a century-old water rights compact.

With regards to the ongoing standoff, Touton said on Monday that the best solution is one that includes all “the states and the growers and the tribes,” as well as sound science.

Hickenlooper, meanwhile, described “an energy and optimism” that the states will be able to come to an agreement.

“We’re going to get here, some way or another,” he said. “We’ll get a seven-state solution.”

That solution, the senator continued, should involve a shared level of sacrifice from all parties.

“There’s genuine consensus that the original compact was made on faulty science. And you know, it’s 100 years old,” Hickenlooper said.

Bennet expressed similar hopefulness about such an agreement, noting that the states have a shared understanding about the 1,200-year drought.

While this year’s wet winter has provided some relief, Hickenlooper stressed that this is not a long-term solution.

Instead, he explained, the weather “gives us a little more time to figure out what the solutions will be.”