The Trump administration released its final plan Friday for managing the drought-stricken Colorado River over the next decade, a major milestone in the seven-state brawl over water supplies for 40 million people across the West.
The Interior Department’s plan — issued in the form of a final environmental impact statement — effectively breaks the fight into smaller chunks without resolving any of the fundamental disputes. Rather than setting decades-long rules for how the river’s supplies will be divvied up, it has the department issuing smaller plans every two years for how the river will be operated.
“The Department has a responsibility to ensure the Colorado River system remains reliable and resilient for the millions of Americans, communities and industries that depend on it,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “This framework provides the flexibility to respond to changing hydrologic conditions while preserving the opportunity for the Basin States to continue working toward durable, consensus-based solutions.”
The plan, which has been in the making for months, is aimed at avoiding a major water and energy crisis along a river system that supplies economies from the mountains of Wyoming to Los Angeles to the U.S.-Mexico border, and produces hydropower that is crucial to the region’s electric grid.
But it is just the first in a handful of high-stakes decisions that Interior is expected to finalize in the coming weeks. Next comes the even more contentious one: the initial two-year operating plan that will determine water delivery cuts for specific states and water users.
In a statement, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), whose state is first in line for cuts under the century-old legal regime that governs the Colorado River, said the plan contains “unacceptable options that include the federal government forcing Arizona to take the majority of draconian water cutbacks.”
Hobbs appealed to the Trump administration to embrace a proposal that Arizona, California and Nevada put forth for managing the river over the next two years. Under that approach, the three downstream states agreed to specific water delivery cuts, some of which were conditioned on federal funding.
“Our proposal is one of the largest conservation programs in Colorado River history and builds on Arizona’s decades-long commitment to responsible water stewardship,” said Hobbs, who is facing a tight reelection fight this fall in a state that voted for President Donald Trump in 2024
Looming decisions
Interior is expected to release its operating plan for 2027 and 2028 in the coming weeks, ahead of a mid-August deadline for setting next year’s river operations.
State negotiators believe it will largely reflect the downstream states’ proposal. But not all of the details have been finalized yet, and some elements of the proposal raised hackles among the upstream states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.
“The proposal responds to a fundamental reality: the Colorado River no longer reliably produces enough water to support all the uses and expectations built around it,” California’s lead negotiator, JB Hamby, said in a statement. He argued that the upstream states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming should also share in the cuts.
But putting the downstream states’ proposed water delivery cuts into effect would require state and local officials in Arizona and California to take politically charged votes to sign off on the plan, including by the Arizona Legislature. The Legislature adjourned last month after passing next year’s budget, so doing so would almost certainly require Hobbs to call a special legislative session.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, whose city has become a major hub for high-tech manufacturing and data centers, said it is ready to deal with the cuts, even if it disagreed with them.
“Phoenix has spent decades planning for a moment like this, and is prepared to use less Colorado River water, but it is wrong to lay a disproportionate share of the burden on Arizona,” the Democrat posted on X.
In California, the boards of major water contractors — including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that provides water to Los Angeles, San Diego and other municipalities — must also vote to approve parts of the deal.
The threat of a court fight
While the plan Interior issued Friday does not outline crucial details, what it does is open the window for high-stakes litigation.
Lawsuits against the federal government’s plan could be filed as soon as Interior issues a record of decision finalizing it. State officials say that could happen in a matter of days, a result of the Trump administration’s moves to streamline procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act.
An even bigger legal fight over states’ obligations to each other under a century-old compact could be ripe as soon as this fall and would swiftly land at the Supreme Court.
Hobbs this spring hired a top-tier international law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell.
In an interview Friday, the state’s lead river negotiator indicated that litigation remains on the table.
“We’re going to assess how and when we might need to preserve Arizona’s legal rights,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
