Update: the Senate passed the spending bill on a 68-29 vote; it now heads to the House.
A bipartisan measure from U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper seeking to fund conservation efforts in the Upper Colorado River basin hangs in the balance as federal lawmakers are poised to vote on a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill.
The U.S. Senate is seeking to get the spending bill over to the House before Congress adjourns for the holidays, ahead of the prospect of a Republican House majority that is set to take over in January.
Funding for the federal government expires at midnight Friday without Congressional action.
The measure, if passed by the House and signed into law by the president, would fund the federal government through Sept. 30, 2023, the end of the current fiscal year.
Among the bill's provisions is $1.93 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation to assist western states in maintaining water supply for tribes, rural communities, and parts of the country experiencing drought conditions. That includes the Colorado River Basin Conservation Act, a measure sponsored by Hickenlooper, D-Denver and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet issued an estimate on the bill's cost.
The measure would reauthorize the System Conservation Pilot Program, which offers compensation to Colorado River users in exchange for voluntary and temporary water conservation measures. Farmers and ranchers could be paid about $330 per acre-foot of water to $400 per acre-foot, depending on how long farmers agree to conservation measures.
The original pilot program, under the Upper Colorado River Commission and the Bureau, ran from 2014 to 2018, intended to "explore potential solutions, address declining water levels in Lakes Mead and Lake Powell and the potential for long-term drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The program implemented and tested on-the-ground water conservation opportunities," the UCRC said.
“Voluntary conservation is just one part of the solution to our Colorado River crisis,” Hickenlooper said in a statement Tuesday. “This is an encouraging step toward sustainability.”
Hickenlooper, who had been on paternity leave, is back in Washington Wednesday to vote on the omnibus spending bill.
That statement noted the call from Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton last June to the seven states of the Colorado River basin, demanding they reduce water use on the Colorado by two to four million acre-feet by next year, or face mandatory cuts imposed by the Bureau. In August, however, Touton relied only on previously-agreed to cuts in Colorado River water use and gave the states more time to come up with a reduction plan.
Touton's call prompted the Upper Colorado River Commission to release a 5-point plan to meet the reduction, which included reauthorization of the System Conservation Pilot Program, although that proposal did not identify any actual water savings.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved the Colorado River Basin Conservation Act last July as an amendment to the Salton Sea Projects Improvements Act. In December, the committee held an additional hearing on the legislation.
The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden in August, also provides $4 billion to address drought in the West, including paying farmers in the lower Colorado River states of Arizona, Nevada and California to conserve water at Lake Mead through similar conservation measures and at the same per-acre-foot price as is proposed in the Colorado River Basin Conservation Act.
