Water Monitoring and Tracking Essential Resources (Water) Data Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Madam President, in Colorado and across the West, as you know as well as I, many, many communities are facing a historic drought crisis. Decades of drought are, in fact, long-term aridification and in many ways have become the new normal.

These bills respond to the urgent needs of our drought-stricken communities. They maintain the Federal Government's ability to respond to drought and allow voluntary water conservation in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

We need these now as we are seeing in realtime how drought threatens our very way of life. More than 40 million people rely on the Colorado River for water, food, recreation, energy. Our communities, our farms, our environment all depend on water. These bills extend programs that we already know work. At risk is our entire way of life.

Thankfully, the two House bills I mentioned, the Drought Preparedness Act and WATER, the Water Data Improvement Act, will now become law. My colleague from Boulder, Joe Neguse, has done the heavy lifting to get this across the finish line in that Chamber. I am happy to do the same here.

But the two Senate bills just passed will still need to pass the House to help us out in the West. We really are running out of time.

The System Conservation Pilot Program enables voluntary water conservation in the Upper Colorado River, and I have been working closely with Senator Barrasso to reauthorize it. It is supported by the Upper Colorado River Commission and got its start in the depths of the 2022 Colorado River drought that continues to this day.

It is critical that we pass this 2-year reauthorization because water users and farmers who participate need to make decisions now about signing on for next year. Any delay that will limit the Upper Basin's ability to find participants and run a successful water conservation program, we can't afford that.

We are asking Speaker Johnson to please put this lifeline for western farmers and ranchers on the suspension calendar and make sure that it is able to pass this year.

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