Western states will fail to meet the Trump administration’s final deadline to strike a major new water-sharing deal for the West’s most important river, three of the region’s governors said Friday.
“The federal deadline for a consensus agreement on managing the Colorado River after 2026 is passing for a second time without resolution,” Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a joint statement.
The failure comes after two years of acrimonious talks over a waterway that supplies 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles to Phoenix and has shrunk dramatically because of climate change. And it now thrusts the Trump administration into a series of politically perilous decisions about how to divvy up the precious resource across a region that includes two prized political swing states and two of the country’s most Republican states.
The Interior Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment. It has officially given the states until 5 p.m. Saturday to reach a deal, but a final meeting of the seven states and Interior officials ended Friday without agreement — and without any indication from the administration about what its next move will be, state negotiators said.
