1. WATER
Strange bedfellows seek to spare West from U.S. 'taking'
One is a tea party-backed Republican who has fought to relax regulations for energy development and logging on federal lands. The other is a liberal Democrat who has sued a drilling company for fracking a well too close to his land. While Colorado Reps. Scott Tipton (R) and Jared Polis (D) rarely see eye to eye on natural resources policy, the two, like many people in the West, have found a common denominator: water.