Senate Democrats urge Trump administration to end Colorado River funding freeze
Senate Democrats from the U.S. West on Monday urged the Department of the Interior to end a funding freeze that could endanger the flow of the Colorado River.
The lawmakers, from California, Nevada and Arizona, slammed the Trump administration's day-one executive order that halted disbursements from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — including $4 billion that Congress had earmarked for water management and conservation in the West.
Among the projects that were supposed to benefit from those funds was the Lower Colorado River System Conservation and Efficiency Program, which had aimed to raise the elevation of Lake Mead — the basin's largest reservoir — by 9 feet this year, the senators wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
The program, the senators explained, has been vital "in increasing water conservation, improving efficiency, and preventing the Colorado River system’s reservoirs from reaching dangerously low levels that threaten water deliveries and power production."
The pause in funding has occurred in a pivotal moment for Colorado River region states, as negotiations occur over long-term operational and conservation guidelines for the 1,450-mile artery, which serves about 40 million people in the U.S. and Mexico. The current interim rules, set in 2007, will expire at the end of 2026.
Just how the future guidelines will take shape remains uncertain, as the Lower Basin states and their Upper Basin peers — Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — have struggled to come to a consensus.
With the two contingents still at odds in late November, the Biden administration tried to expedite the process — releasing a bullet-point list of five possible alternatives, followed by a more detailed version just days before President Trump's inauguration.
In their appeal to Burgum, the Senate Democrats — Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (Calif.), Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen (Nev.) and Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly (Ariz.) — stressed how critical their conservation program has been to shaping past agreements among vying states.
Under such an arrangement last year, they explained, the Lower Basin States committed to conserving 3 million acre-feet of water, with the goal of tiding the system over until post-2026 guidelines materialize.
"With funding now on hold, these conservation targets are at risk, threatening the progress made and undermining future multistate agreements," the lawmakers warned.
The letter from the senators follows other such requests, such as an appeal last week from Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), who wrote directly to Trump regarding the Colorado River cuts. Withholding the funding, Stanton argued, both jeopardizes basin-wide conservation and complicates negotiation efforts among the states.
Stanton described the status quo as an "absolute breaking point," while slamming the funding freeze as "short-sighted."
For their part, the senators characterized the need for water in the Colorado River basin as "more urgent than ever," warning that this year's weather forecast projects a below-average supply.
"Without continued support from Interior, efforts to conserve water and sustain the communities, economies, and ecosystems that rely on the Colorado River are in serious jeopardy," the senators added.
In response to a query about the letter from The Hill, J. Elizabeth Peace, an Interior Department spokesperson, declined to comment, only noting, "Our policy is to not correspond with members of Congress through the media."
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