The high-stakes brawl over the drought-stricken Colorado River comes to Capitol Hill this week.
The Trump administration’s top Western water official is set to appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday as the Interior Department is preparing to wrest control of the waterway later this summer.
The department already invoked emergency authorities in April when it became clear that the river would see the lowest flows on record this summer, threatening the ability to produce hydropower and release water out of one of the country’s largest reservoirs, Lake Powell.
Part of those emergency operations — releasing roughly a third of the water out of Flaming Gorge reservoir upstream from Powell — has had negative impacts on the recreational economy in ENR Chair Mike Lee’s home state of Utah, as well as neighboring Wyoming.
Water managers are hoping it will be enough to head off crisis this year along the waterway that supports 40 million people, 5.5 million acres of farmland and a booming tech sector from Wyoming to Mexico.
But the seven states that share its flows remain sharply divided over whose cities, farmers, tribes and industries should curtail their use when the current water-sharing rules expire in October, leaving the Trump administration to make the politically wrenching decisions.
Scott Cameron, Interior’s acting Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, last week said the department plans to release a draft plan for operating the waterway unilaterally in the “mid-to-late summer.”
Half of the region’s senators sit on the ENR Committee — including Lee and ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) — and this week’s hearing will offer them a chance to publicly press Interior on its plan.
That’s important not just for their home state constituents, but also for building a legal record on issues that appear destined for a high-stakes court battle that could land before the Supreme Court.
Andrea Travnicek, assistant secretary for water and science at Interior, will be in the hot seat alongside the top career official at the Bureau of Reclamation, David Palumbo. Cameron is nearing the legal limit on how long a non-Senate confirmed official can serve in an acting capacity.
The stakes are arguably highest for Arizona — represented on the committee by Sen. Ruben Gallego (D) — which is the most junior users of river water thanks to a 1968 law that put its priority status behind California and Nevada in the Lower Basin.
The 336-mile-long canal system that delivers Colorado River water to Phoenix, Tucson and other booming communities in the central part of the state could be effectively dried out under the plan, the state’s lead river negotiator recently told his state’s top water players.
Arizona state officials have taken steps to prepare for litigation, but deciding whether and when to bring it will be a complex legal and political calculus. Key players will be Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, who are both running for reelection as Democrats in a deeply purple state that voted for Trump in the 2024 election.
The hearing will also offer a rare public window onto Lee and Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso’s approach to the issues. The pair of powerful Republicans are seen as wielding strong behind-the-scenes influence on the Trump administration’s approach to the Colorado River, including in the White House’s decision last year to withdraw the nomination of a longtime Arizona water official to be commissioner of Reclamation.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, June 10, at 9:30 a.m. in 366 Dirksen and via webcast.
Witnesses:
- Andrea Travnicek, assistant secretary for water and science, Interior Department.
- David Palumbo, deputy commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation.
- Amy Haas, executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah.
- Mike Vickrey, rancher, Green River Valley Cattlemen’s Association.
- Tom Kiernan, CEO, American Rivers.
- Bill Hasencamp, manager, Colorado River Resources, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
