Home-Grown Solutions The Key to Successful Water Management in the West By United States Senator James Risch
W
16
United States Senator James Risch (R-ID).
entities the autonomy and flexibility they need for better decisionmaking and financing opportunities. Although the process for transferring qualifying entities has been in place since 1995, only 30 assets have been successfully transferred across all Reclamation states. This is because along with meeting the framework required by Reclamation to be eligible, each individual title transfer requires full compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and an act of Congress. I am working to advance the Reclamation Title Transfer Act of 2018 to improve and hasten this process. Under this act, instead of requiring actions by both the House and Senate and full NEPA compliance, the title of qualifying entities will be able to be transferred by the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior with a 90-day window for congressional disapproval. Idaho has been a success story in the current title transfer process, claiming 4 of the 30 successful title transfers. IRRIGATION LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF U.S. SENATOR JAMES RISCH.
ater was a pillar of economic success in the West long before Idaho and its neighbors became states. It has allowed us to boast of highly fertile farmland, thriving energy production, efficient transportation for goods, and unmatched recreational opportunities. As perhaps the most precious and vital resource in the western United States, our water comes with a storied past with competing interests. With its long history of controversy and compromise, those who best understand the complexity of the issues around water are the local communities. Western water is intricate and nuanced—and, above all else, so important to our state—which is why it is so vital that its management be focused in the individual states where laws and agreements have been shaped over time. Idaho and other western states are no strangers to the burden of overreaching federal regulations. The egregious overstep by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2015 to extend the waters of the United States definition far beyond what could conceivably be considered “navigable” has resonated throughout the state. To examine irrigation canals and ditches under the same lens as the Snake River and other western rivers shows the lack of awareness that can come when decisionmakers are out of touch with the land and way of life they are dictating to. Federal bureaucrats who live on the banks of the Potomac should not be given unlimited authority to regulate states, which is unfortunately precisely what the 2015 rule accomplished. In the United States Senate, I have worked to defend the states as equals to the federal government, especially when it comes to our sovereign right to manage our treasured natural resources. Idaho has its own definition of navigable that went through the public process in the Idaho State Legislature and became state law, taking into account the needs and intricacies of Idaho water. I applaud President Trump’s EPA for working to rescind the poorly crafted waters of the United States rule to give states their entitled authority. This Congress and administration must continue our work to reduce regulations and remove bureaucratic barriers to make way for common-sense, locally driven solutions. This is why I have introduced legislation to revise the process for Bureau of Reclamation title transfers. More than two-thirds of Reclamation assets, such as dikes, ditches, and pumps, are maintained by nonfederal entities that cover operating costs and often have already completed capital repayment to Reclamation. Obtaining an asset’s title gives those local
