As the drought-stricken Colorado River lurches toward a sprawling water and power crisis, lawmakers are beginning to discuss an escape hatch: waiving or streamlining environmental rules.
“Several weeks ago, I met with the 14 senators from the Colorado River Basin, and on a bipartisan basis, several of them said, ‘Look, if we have a real crisis on the Colorado and we need to get things done, and if there are any environmental statutes that are slowing things down, tell us what they are and maybe we can legislate to clear out some of the unhelpful bureaucratic paperwork,’” acting Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Scott Cameron said during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Wednesday.
The comments come as the West’s most important river faces record-low flows this year at the same time that water levels at one of its primary reservoirs are teetering precariously close to the point at which hydropower could no longer be produced and water deliveries to the reservoir that supplies Arizona, California and Nevada would be threatened.
Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation last month launched emergency actions aimed at heading off a disaster this summer, but the seven states that share the river are deadlocked over a water-sharing plan to deal with the fundamental problem that more water is being used by farms, cities, industries and tribes than flows down the waterway most years. That has left Interior preparing to manage the river unilaterally beginning in October — a scenario that already has at least one state contemplating litigation.
