[Senate Hearing 117-468]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-468

SHORT- AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO EXTREME DROUGHT IN THE WESTERN UNITED 
                                 STATES

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                             JUNE 14, 2022
                               __________


                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
48-126 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024   

        
               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine            JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado       CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
                                     ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas

                      Renae Black, Staff Director
                      Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
              Melanie Thornton, Professional Staff Member
             Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
              Matthew H. Leggett, Republican Chief Counsel
       Brian Clifford, Republican Principal Deputy Staff Director
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West 
  Virginia.......................................................     1
Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from 
  Wyoming........................................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Touton, Hon. Camille C., Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation, 
  U.S. Department of the Interior................................     5
Entsminger, John J., General Manager, Southern Nevada Water 
  Authority......................................................    15
Hall, Dr. Maurice, Vice President, Climate Resilient Water 
  Systems, Environmental Defense Fund............................    19
O'Toole, Patrick, President, Family Farm Alliance................    27
Stern, Charlie, Specialist in Natural Resources Policy, 
  Congressional Research Service.................................    53

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

American Farm Bureau:
    Survey entitled ``Assessing Western Drought Conditions''.....    91
Barrasso, Hon. John:
    Opening Statement............................................     3
Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District et al.:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   151
Deschutes Basin Board of Control:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   160
Entsminger, John J.:
    Opening Statement............................................    15
    Written Testimony............................................    17
Hall, Dr. Maurice:
    Opening Statement............................................    19
    Written Testimony............................................    21
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   134
Hasman, Gregory:
    Gillette News Record article entitled ``Drought Could Leave 
      Wyoming Ranchers With Tough Choices''......................   145
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
    Chart depicting megadroughts occurring in the West over the 
      last 1,200 years...........................................    81
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
(The) Nature Conservancy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   165
O'Toole Patrick:
    Opening Statement............................................    27
    Written Testimony............................................    29
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   137
Stern, Charlie:
    Opening Statement............................................    53
    Written Testimony............................................    55
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   141
Touton, Camille C.:
    Opening Statement............................................     5
    Written Testimony............................................     7
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   120
Western States Water Council:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   167
    Statement for the Record regarding the DOI WaterSMART Program   178
    Statement for the Record regarding federal water and climate 
      data and analysis..........................................   180
    Statement for the Record regarding the Bureau of Reclamation 
      Drought Response Program...................................   182

 
                     SHORT- AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS
                       TO EXTREME DROUGHT IN THE
                         WESTERN UNITED STATES

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin 
III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III, 
                U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

    The Chairman. Now, for our hearing today, which is our 
drought hearing, moving on to the focus of today's hearing. I 
want to thank you all for being here today as we discuss the 
western drought crisis, an extremely pressing issue that is no 
doubt ever-present in the minds of our western colleagues. The 
West is currently facing a historic megadrought, and 92 percent 
of the area at large is facing some degree of drought. From 
some states like Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and 
Utah, that figure is at 100 percent. In the southwestern U.S., 
scientists have called this the worst that the area has seen in 
1,200 years. I know the water issues out West are very 
different than what we have in West Virginia. We are often 
faced with the opposite problem of flooding and too much water 
rather than a drought.
    But it does not matter where you live, drought has a domino 
effect that indirectly spills over into the lives of all 
Americans, from the economic losses to wildfires to food 
scarcities and higher food prices. The historic significance of 
this period should serve as a wake-up call to the entire 
country on the critical importance of stakeholders coming 
together to develop and implement drought-proof water solutions 
that tackle both water supply and water demand, especially in 
light of population growth and climate change. But as I have 
often said on the topic of climate change, I want to stay 
focused on actionable solutions, and that will be the focus of 
the drought discussion today.
    The Bureau of Reclamation has a vital role to play when it 
comes to managing western water resources and addressing water 
scarcity. President Teddy Roosevelt created the Bureau of 
Reclamation shortly after signing the Reclamation Act on June 
17, 1902, 120 years ago this Friday. Today, the Bureau of 
Reclamation is the nation's largest water supplier, operating 
over 300 reservoirs that provide one in five western farmers 
with the water for their crops and deliver ten trillion gallons 
of drinking water to millions of people each year. But the 
Agency is currently facing unprecedented challenges given the 
historic low and continuing declining levels of water in many 
of the country's largest reservoirs. And the Colorado River 
Basin, Lake Mead, and Lake Powell have reached their lowest 
levels ever recorded. Currently, Lake Mead is sitting at 29 
percent capacity while Lake Powell is currently at 27 percent 
capacity. These lake levels put hydropower, which is critical 
to current and future grid reliability in the West, at risk 
because the water must be high enough to actually turn the 
turbines. In fact, the North American Electric Reliability 
Corporation, or NERC, cites the threat of low water levels to 
hydroelectricity generation to be among the challenges to 
maintaining grid reliability in the West for the coming summer.
    Future water projections in this Basin also look grim, and 
if water levels continue to decline, it would trigger the most 
severe water cuts for the Southwest. This is incredibly 
alarming to everyone. These reservoirs are a crucial source of 
water to millions of households, thousands of farmers and 
ranchers, wildlife habitat, and provide power for over 3.5 
million homes. With multiple entities competing for limited 
water resources that Reclamation facilities provide, there are 
no doubt going to be some tough decisions ahead about how to 
equitably allocate these water supplies. Last year, Congress 
invested in western water infrastructure and provided the 
Bureau of Reclamation a historic amount of funding in the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $8.3 billion, to fund projects 
that can provide short-term drought relief and long-term 
drought resilience. It provided funding for water recycling, 
desalination, storage and aging infrastructure projects, 
incentives for water conservation and efficiency, and funding 
for projects that provide multiple benefits for people and the 
environment. I look forward to hearing from Commissioner Touton 
about how the Agency is prioritizing these funds to deal with 
our scarce water supplies, and where additional Congressional 
action may be needed to prepare for the future.
    While the discussion around drought has centered on water 
supply availability, water demand solutions must also be part 
of the conversation. I have talked at length about how energy 
efficiency is a common-sense way to reduce our energy 
consumption, and I think it makes sense to look at water 
through the same lens. Water and energy are two sides of the 
same coin. It takes a lot of energy to treat the water we use 
in our everyday lives and it takes substantial amounts of water 
to produce energy. Given the current drought and high energy 
costs we are seeing across the board, water conservation and 
efficient water use are the lowest hanging fruit to managing 
our demand. I understand there are tools available that can 
help western communities make investments to conserve water. 
One such tool is the Bureau of Reclamation's WaterSMART 
program. This program was designed specifically to address 
water demand by investing in irrigation infrastructure and 
water conservation and efficiency improvements to help 
communities respond to water scarcity conflicts across the arid 
West.
    One thing we can all agree on is that an all-of-the-above, 
collective approach is needed to adapt to these tough 
conditions because there are only so many ways to split such a 
critical and limited resource. I look forward to learning from 
our expert witnesses on where opportunities exist to further 
invest in both water supply and water demand. Finally, a long-
term, coordinated drought effort is going to require flexible 
water management strategies and meaningful investment at the 
state and federal levels. The bottom line is this, water is the 
most essential resource to the health of our people, our 
economy, and our environment, but prolonged drought is becoming 
a frightening new norm. It is going to take effort and 
collaboration from all parties involved to commit to 
implementing sustainable drought solutions. Recognizing this 
reality is critical. So I look forward to learning more and 
discussing how we can better manage and conserve the limited 
water resources that are the lifeblood of so many economies and 
communities.
    I will now turn to Senator Barrasso for his opening 
remarks.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

    Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman, for 
holding this important hearing today on the devastating drought 
that we are living through in the West.
    First, I want to welcome Pat O'Toole of Savery, Wyoming to 
be at the Committee today as a member of our panel. Mr. 
O'Toole, thanks so much for agreeing to testify today. You have 
been here in the past to testify. You always provide valuable 
insight, and I am glad you are here to provide that insight 
today on this important topic.
    Mr. Chairman, I am going to give a more extensive 
introduction of Pat, who is formerly a member of the Wyoming 
legislature, when we get to that point, in terms of the witness 
testimony.
    Extreme drought is a serious concern to all westerners, but 
especially to small, rural farming and ranching communities in 
Wyoming. Drought can create conditions for catastrophic 
wildfires that threaten homes and communities. According to the 
National Interagency Fire Center, over 27,000 wildfires have 
already burned close to two million acres this year--and it is 
all across the country. Drought also reduces recreational and 
tourism opportunities. It reduces related jobs around 
reservoirs and public lands, and now, according to the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 36 national parks, over 
400 ski resorts, and over 1,500 reservoirs are experiencing 
moderate to exceptional drought.
    Drought impacts energy production and availability. Low 
water levels threaten the operation of hydro dams, which 
provide a significant amount of carbon-free electricity to 
western communities, and you mentioned that in your opening 
statement, Mr. Chairman. Lack of water availability also 
threatens hydraulic fracturing. This is a process which 
produces abundant supplies of clean natural gas. Drought denies 
water to vital grazing lands and alfalfa fields necessary for 
feeding and raising cattle. This can result in significant 
economic impacts for communities that depend on agriculture and 
ranching to create jobs. When farms and ranches stop producing 
because of a lack of water, it doesn't just put farmers and 
ranchers out of work, it increases the cost of food. This hits 
families in the West and across the country who can afford it 
the least.
    American families are dealing with skyrocketing inflation 
and record-breaking gas prices at the pump, the highest in 
history today. We cannot afford a grocery-drought tax on top of 
all that, which is going to clearly bust family household 
budgets even further. The problems and impacts of drought are 
clear. What Westerners need are solutions. This means we need 
solutions to help Upper Basin states like Wyoming be in 
compliance with their obligations to other Colorado River Basin 
states. These solutions include providing flexibility in the 
operation of Bureau of Reclamation facilities to better manage 
available water resources. We also need to develop better data 
to understand how much water our state and other states are 
using and account for that use. Improved data is going to help 
us understand what the drought is doing to our states and to 
our water users across all sectors. Better forecasting data 
will also identify drought-related problems before they arise. 
We also need to invest in additional water storage 
opportunities to more effectively use the water that we do 
have. Building more water storage will give Wyoming and other 
states the water they need. It will provide system resiliency 
and will help maintain stream flows to benefit fish and 
wildlife.
    The stakes could not be higher, Mr. Chairman. We need 
short-and long-term solutions that provide Westerners the water 
they need. Any policies that do not ensure the health, safety, 
and economic well-being of American families first, are not 
policies worth pursuing. More water storage, improved federal 
flexibility, better data, and improved forecasting can help 
accomplish these goals. Upper and Lower Basin states benefit 
from working together to address the drought and accomplish 
these goals. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward 
to hearing from the witnesses.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
    I would like to now introduce our panel of witnesses, and 
we have joining us today Hon. Camille Touton. She is the 
Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation at the U.S. 
Department of the Interior.
    We have Mr. John Entsminger, General Manager of the 
Southern Nevada Water Authority.
    We have Dr. Maurice Hall, Vice President of Climate 
Resilient Water Systems at the Environmental Defense Fund.
    We have Mr. Pat O'Toole, President of the Family Farm 
Alliance, whom Senator Barrasso is going to introduce.
    Finally, we have Mr. Charlie Stern, a specialist in Natural 
Resources Policy at the Congressional Research Service.
    I want to thank each and every one of you for being here 
and taking the time to be with us today to help educate us. 
Now, to the witnesses opening remarks, first of all, I am going 
to start with Mr. O'Toole, and I would like for Senator 
Barrasso to properly introduce you.
    Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. And I 
would like to take this moment just to introduce Pat O'Toole of 
Savery, Wyoming, who is going to be testifying shortly. He is 
the President of the Family Farm Alliance, also a cattle and 
sheep rancher and a hay grower. He has been a member of the 
Family Farm Alliance's Board of Directors since 1998, and was 
named as the organization's fifth president in March 2005. He 
is a former member of the Wyoming House of Representatives.
    He and his wife, Sharon, live on a ranch that has been in 
the family since 1881, which was nine years before Wyoming even 
became a state. The O'Toole family and the Ladder Ranch were 
the recipients of the 2014 Wyoming Leopold Environmental 
Stewardship Award. He is a graduate of Colorado State 
University and has a strong background in irrigated 
agriculture. His understanding of the water needs of rural 
western ranching communities in the Upper Basin is going to 
prove valuable for today's hearing.
    So, Pat, again, thanks for making the trip. Thank you for 
joining us today. Welcome to the Committee.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Now, we will start with our witnesses, and Honorable Ms. 
Touton, if you would.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CAMILLE C. TOUTON, COMMISSIONER, 
     BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Ms. Touton. Good morning, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member 
Barrasso, and members of this Committee, and good morning to 
this panel. My name is Camille Calimlim Touton, and I am the 
Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. Thank you for this 
ongoing dialogue on the very important issue of water across 
the West. The panel can talk about the specificity of how the 
drought impacts agriculture, communities, and ecosystems. I 
will focus on the management of the system and the actions 
Reclamation is taking to manage this moment and into the 
future.
    My written testimony goes into more specifics on the 
actions in which we manage our 189 projects, but you will see a 
similar fact pattern in every major river basin--hydrologic 
variability, hotter temperatures leading to earlier snow melt, 
dry soils, all translating into earlier and low runoff. This is 
coupled, as the Committee has mentioned, with the lowest 
reservoir levels on record. There is so much to this that is 
unprecedented, and that is true, but unprecedented is now the 
reality and the normal in which Reclamation must manage our 
systems. A warmer, drier West is what we are seeing today. 
Reclamation is responding basin by basin and engaging in 
actions to mitigate the impacts of a drying landscape.
    We are utilizing our operational and financial authorities 
as we take on this challenge based on the best available 
science and a whole-of-government approach, and we take these 
actions on with our partners across the West. Here are a few to 
date. We are maximizing our financial resources. We 
reprogrammed $100 million in FY21. We received $210 million in 
FY22 from Congress, and we immediately put that to work for 
drought and wildfire activities. In FY22, we also selected 56 
projects, funded $55.3 million in WaterSMART grants across the 
western states. We are using our operational flexibilities. In 
the Colorado River, we have the 500+ Plan and we are engaged in 
the Lower Basin states, and the projects include tribal, 
agricultural, and municipal users. In the Upper Basin, last 
month, we announced two separate drought response actions that 
will help increase Lake Powell storage by nearly one million 
acre-feet over the next 12 months to help preserve and protect 
power pool.
    We are implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and 
last month, Reclamation announced 46 project selections for 
aging infrastructure and extraordinary maintenance, totaling 
$240 million. We have funding opportunities available for water 
recycling, desalination, water efficiency projects, and those 
are announced throughout this year. And this Friday, on our 
birthday, we will be breaking ground on the first $100 million 
contract for dam safety at B.F. Sisk in California. This 
Friday, Reclamation will celebrate 120 years since we were 
created by Congress, and the challenges we are seeing today are 
unlike anything we have seen in our history. The science of the 
system across the West and especially in the Colorado River 
Basin indicates one of immediate action. And we rely on our 
120-year track record of partnerships to solve these challenges 
and will continue to do so.
    But in the Colorado River Basin, more conservation and 
demand management are needed in addition to the actions already 
underway. Between two and four million acre-feet of additional 
conservation is needed just to protect critical levels in 2023. 
It is within our authorities to act unilaterally to protect the 
system. And we will protect the system. But today, we are 
pursuing a path of partnership. We are working with the states 
and tribes in having this discussion, and I have the faith and 
confidence of a century's track record in reaching a consensus 
solution. But faith alone is not enough. We need to see the 
work. We need to see the action. And my ask of Congress today 
is to keep pushing us back to the table. And to my partners, to 
stay at the table until the job is done.
    The nearly 6,000 Reclamation professionals of today are 
part of a rich legacy of Americans renowned for harnessing 
cutting-edge technology, who inspired our nation through the 
Great Depression and World War II, and continue to help sustain 
the life and livelihood of the American West we know today. 
Working with our partners in serving the people in the 
communities of the American West is how Reclamation has met and 
overcome its many challenges and will continue to do so in the 
future. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Touton follows:]

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    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Now, we will have Mr. Entsminger.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF JOHN J. ENTSMINGER, 
        GENERAL MANAGER, SOUTHERN NEVADA WATER AUTHORITY

    Mr. Entsminger. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, 
Senator Cortez Masto, and members of the Committee, thank you 
for the opportunity to address you on this issue of critical 
importance to both Nevada and the western United States. My 
name is John Entsminger. I am the General Manager of the 
Southern Nevada Water Authority. I am not a person who is prone 
to hyperbole, but I can assure you from on the ground that the 
ominous tenor of recent media reports is warranted. What has 
been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating and 
the moment of reckoning is near. While the situation is 
objectively bleak, it is not in my view unsolvable. There is 
little we can do to improve the Colorado River's hydrology. The 
solution to this problem--and by solution, I do not mean 
refilling the reservoirs, but rather avoiding potentially 
catastrophic conditions--is a degree of demand management 
previously considered unattainable.
    Nevada's efforts are a case in point. With only 1.8 percent 
of the river's allocated flows, we are little more than a 
rounding error. Lake Mead loses twice as much water to 
evaporation than we use each year. However, this tiny volume of 
water sustains 70 percent of the state's population. Our 
population has increased by 800,000 people over the last two 
decades, but our water consumption last year was 26 percent 
less than at the turn of the century. We achieved this by 
paying customers to replace grass with drip-irrigated plants, 
setting mandatory irrigation schedules, and strictly enforcing 
water waste rules. We have removed enough grass to lay a roll 
of sod all the way around the Earth. And we are not done. In 
addition to even tighter restrictions on ornamental turf, our 
sights are now set on improving irrigation efficiency and 
reducing evaporative cooling.
    There are headwinds along this journey, including a 
reluctance of the business community to embrace conservation 
and ESG metrics that value energy efficiency over saving water. 
Our key advantage is that we capture and recover virtually 
every drop of indoor water. This is why continued financial and 
administrative support for projects on the Las Vegas Wash--
green infrastructure through which we return water to Lake 
Mead--are so important. We also encourage federal support for 
large-scale water recycling projects for communities without 
access to large reservoirs. In engaging my colleagues in other 
states, it is clear they recognize the urgency of the situation 
and are ramping up their conservation efforts. However, and 
there is no way around this, cities alone cannot address this 
crisis, not because of indifference but because we simply do 
not use enough water to tip the scales. As in the cities, the 
primary consumptive use in the agricultural sector is grass. 
Around 80 percent of the Colorado River is used for 
agriculture, and 80 percent of that 80 percent is used for 
forage crops like alfalfa. I am not suggesting that farmers 
stop farming, but rather that they carefully consider crop 
selection and make the investments needed to optimize 
irrigation efficiency.
    My view has always been that you cannot improve efficiency 
unless you can measure it, so I strongly support the current 
OpenET bill, Senate bill 2568, sponsored by Senator Cortez 
Masto. This legislation will provide access to more consistent, 
accurate water use data than is currently possible. By reducing 
their use of Colorado River water, agricultural entities are 
protecting their own interests. If Lake Mead reaches deadpool, 
Nevada's allocation will undoubtedly be further reduced, but we 
can still meet critical needs because we have invested $1.4 
billion in local funding to secure our access to water. 
However, at that same elevation, California, Arizona, and 
Mexico will be cut off entirely, because water simply cannot 
escape from Lake Mead. We are 150 feet from 25 million 
Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of 
decline is accelerating. The burden of shortage cannot be borne 
by any single community or sector. Rather, I urge every user of 
the Colorado River to follow our lead and do all they can to 
preserve what remains of the lifeblood of the Southwest. Our 
collective futures depend upon it. Thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Entsminger follows:]

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    The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
    Now, we have Dr. Hall.

OPENING STATEMENT OF DR. MAURICE HALL, VICE PRESIDENT, CLIMATE 
      RESILIENT WATER SYSTEMS, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND

    Dr. Hall. Thank you, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member 
Barrasso, and Committee members, for the chance to speak to you 
today on this most urgent issue. EDF's mission is to build a 
vital earth for everyone, and our water work supports water 
supply systems that provide the water we need for fish and 
other wildlife, cities, farms, and rural communities. The 
Commissioner and Mr. Entsminger and the Chairman have already 
made clear the urgency of the moment. So I will focus on some 
things we can do to address this emergency.
    My first major point is that we need the broadest portfolio 
of tools that we can assemble. This challenge is just too big 
for one single solution. Thankfully, we do have options, but we 
have to manage for the rain and snow patterns that climate 
scientists tell us we are in for, not for the patterns we long 
for. This means we have to adjust to less water use. And our 
toolbox should indeed include some targeted water supply 
enhancement, but we must have an increased emphasis on tools 
for reducing the demand. And we also need actions that directly 
respond to the compounding risk of climate change. In a word, 
we must build resilience.
    The portfolio of strategies needed includes some familiar 
actions like municipal conservation, reuse, recycling, water-
saving agricultural practices, and it also includes 
infrastructure investment. But these investments must extend to 
our long-neglected natural infrastructure--our watersheds, 
streams, rivers, and groundwater aquifers. And I want to 
highlight one specific strategy that deserves attention called 
Mutibenefit Land Repurposing. This resilience strategy merged 
from a huge collaboration with a range of partners in 
California's San Joaquin Valley, where, even with some supply 
enhancements, studies suggest that half a million to a million 
acres of agricultural land will have to come out of production 
because of lack of water supply. Now, to avoid this devastating 
outcome, the State of California has recently committed $50 
million to launch an innovative new Multibenefit Land 
Repurposing Program. The intent is to steer a transformation in 
the Central Valley toward a water-resilient agricultural region 
by supporting the repurposing of previously irrigated land into 
a mosaic of vibrant new land uses that require less water and 
that provide other needed benefits for the community, benefits 
like habitat corridors, recreational space for families, and 
recharge to groundwater.
    Now, the demand for this program from farmers and water 
managers is already twice the funding we have available. And we 
expect that demand to grow, for this general concept is 
adaptable to other places. With local collaboration, 
stakeholders with different priorities can tailor this approach 
to address the unique physical, cultural, and economic 
conditions of their region. This brings me to my second major 
point, and that is, durable solutions we need are going to come 
from good-faith collaboration, and addressing the challenge we 
now face is going to require an unprecedented level of 
collaboration. We need to look at examples like the Yakima 
River Basin Integrated Plan and replicate and invest in them. 
And as in Yakima, it can no longer be just the water agencies 
making the decisions. We need everyone's best ideas and 
perspectives in the game and that includes the tribes, 
disadvantaged and rural communities, and environmental 
interests.
    My last point--to accelerate and make that collaboration 
successful, we need good information. And this means supporting 
the longstanding efforts of federal programs like the USGS and 
NRCS. And we also need new tools, like the OpenET platform. The 
drought conditions we are seeing today should be a blazing 
wake-up call for bold and innovative action. And how we respond 
now will shape the future of the rural communities and 
agriculture across the West and the economic health and quality 
of life for the whole region. EDF stands ready to continue our 
collaborative efforts and work with you and a range of partners 
to meaningfully address extreme drought in the West. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Hall follows:]

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    The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
    Now we have Mr. O'Toole.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF PATRICK O'TOOLE, 
                PRESIDENT, FAMILY FARM ALLIANCE

    Mr. O'Toole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Barrasso, 
I appreciate the kind words, and it is an honor for me to be 
here. You can imagine what it is like to come from Wyoming and 
come to the Capitol and be in this building, in this room. It 
is truly amazing to me.
    You know, the advantage of being further down the line 
after other testimony is to be able to maybe react a little 
bit, and a couple of things I heard was take land out of 
production. We have to do different crops. We have heard that 
for years and years and years. I was on a federal water 
commission, appointed by President Clinton, 25 years ago, to 
look 20 years into the future. What was water going to be like 
in 20 years? And the answer was always take water away from 
agriculture.
    Well, the reality is--here is the reality. I have heard the 
word unprecedented used more times than I ever have in one 
session because that is what we are involved in, an 
unprecedented situation. We also are about to do with 
agriculture what we did with manufacturing and let it go 
overseas. The numbers of food production coming into this 
country to take our markets has changed the fundamentals. And 
what our farmers and ranchers are trying to do is figure out 
how to be successful in the future. That is what my family--
that started with my wife's great grandfather trailing horses 
from Eagle Pass, Texas to Wyoming in 1881 to raise horses for 
the Army, and we have been at it a long time and we have seen 
the ups and downs, the 30s, the drought, the creation of the 
conservation districts. And in my perspective, representing the 
growers that grow every crop that is grown in the United 
States, every livestock that comes from this country, is 
members of the Family Farm Alliance. And I can tell you, the 
stress that our people are feeling, that is unprecedented 
because their families are under attack. All you have to do is 
read the New York Times, LA Times, any of those newspapers who 
pick up on, we can solve everything by demonizing farmers. It 
has to stop because we are at an unprecedented lack of 
sustainability in replacing ourselves.
    And to me, the thing that breaks my heart the most is to 
hear a farmer or a rancher say to their children, do not do 
this because there is no future in it. And I have heard it too 
many times because of the economics, because of the water, and 
now with all the other inputs that we have. I do a lot of 
different things. I have been on multiple boards. I have been 
with the Family Farm Alliance for many years. I went to Glasgow 
this year and the climate meetings. I am chairman of a group on 
migratory birds in the western states that, you know, we do 
conservation. Our valley is unprecedented in the amount of 
conservation we are doing. I spent 14 years building as a 
legislator and then trying to permit a reservoir that saved our 
lower valley years ago. We are trying to build a second one.
    And what we need to realize is that there are impediments 
to our best wishes. This Committee has a reputation for 
unanimous votes where people work together. That has been going 
on for a long time, leading a unanimous coordination of 
allowing the process to work. Storage is going to be critically 
important, and even more important in my mind, on the Colorado 
River--I live 25 miles from the head of the Continental 
Divide--is the forest. The forests are broken, and I will give 
all the compliments I can to the Bureau of Reclamation, which I 
work with through the Alliance, but other agencies--I graze my 
entire operation in the National Forest--it is dead. It is not 
generating water. The headwaters of the Colorado River is not 
generating near the numbers of acre-feet that it should because 
the forest is not functioning. What we need to do is take the 
laws and the efforts and the dollars that have come through the 
recent infrastructure bills and put them into place.
    I spent Sunday with a major national group and some 
conservation people talking about how we redo the forest so 
that it generates the kind of water that it could. I spent last 
week with the Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy on the 
National Forest walking where I rode horses my whole life. An 
elephant could not walk through now. And we need to empower 
those people that want to do things to actually do what you all 
have said go do. That is the problem. We are not acting in the 
way that we know how to act, and it just breaks our heart 
because we know what to do. Senator Larry Hicks from the 
Wyoming Legislature is probably the best implementer of policy 
in the United States. I was with him Sunday talking about the 
frustration. And it may sound cynical but what COVID has done 
in my world is the--we are prisoners of a bureaucracy that is 
not functioning.
    We have to allow the system to function, and if there is 
one message that is coming from farmers, it is let us do what 
we do. We cannot give up our production to the Third World, 
which we are in the process of doing at the expense of the 
Third World. There are food riots in Peru where we are raising 
avocadoes and taking their major crops here. We need to reverse 
that. American agriculture is as powerful as it has always 
been, and again, my message about farmers telling their 
children not to farm because there is no future in it. We have 
to turn that around. This is as critical as anything that I can 
tell you. And when we look at the food crisis that we think is 
a Ukrainian deal, it isn't. It is much more complicated, and it 
has been going on for years. And if we do not act, we won't 
have farmers and we won't have rural communities.
    This has been such an opportunity for me. I really 
appreciate it and will be happy to answer any questions. I did 
want to mention one thing about Goshen County, Senator, and 
that is the, you know, the infrastructure that had to be 
replaced was built in 1902--the Roosevelt Administration. Not 
Franklin--and that is the infrastructure part of how important 
it is that we really get down and do what we know how to do. 
Thank you so much.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Toole follows:]

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    The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Stern.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF CHARLIE STERN, SPECIALIST IN NATURAL 
        RESOURCES POLICY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

    Mr. Stern. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and 
members of the Committee, thank you for inviting the 
Congressional Research Service to provide testimony on drought 
in the western United States. My name is Charles Stern, and I 
am a specialist in natural resources policy at CRS. My comments 
today will focus on drought, not in any one specific location, 
but as a broader policy issue. In serving the U.S. Congress, 
CRS takes no position on these issues.
    As you know, a multiyear drought remains widespread across 
many western states, with some areas in an extended period of 
extreme drought. May 2020 through April 2022 was the second 
driest two-year period since 1895 in Arizona, California, 
Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, and the fifth driest two-year 
period since 1895 in Colorado. While the West has a long 
history of drought, the geographically widespread nature of the 
current drought across these states is notable. The Federal 
Government generally defers to state primacy in surface and 
groundwater allocations. Therefore, state, local, and tribal 
entities lead most government efforts to respond to drought. 
However, these entities often look to the Federal Government 
for relief when disasters occur. Following a series of droughts 
in the 1990s, Congress enacted the National Drought Policy Act 
in 1996 and created the National Drought Policy Commission. In 
2000, the Commission submitted to Congress its report, and 
among other things, noted that the United States needed to 
embrace national drought policy with preparedness at its core. 
It also recommended that Congress establish a federal/non-
federal National Drought Council to coordinate federal programs 
addressing drought. Congress enacted some of these 
recommendations, for instance, creating the National Integrated 
Drought Information System within NOAA in 2006. Other 
recommendations, such as increased support for non-federal 
drought preparedness were adopted administratively. Current 
federal drought coordination efforts take several forms.
    Congress has enacted a range of authorities related to 
drought. Most federal financial aid for drought addresses 
agricultural production loss. Other authorities address 
drought-related monitoring and research, emergency drinking 
water supplies, and other short- and long-term drought response 
and mitigation actions. Multiple federal agencies contribute to 
efforts to predict, plan for, and respond to drought. The 2000 
National Drought Policy Commission Report identified 88 
drought-related federal programs, and this total has certainly 
increased since that time. As you know, in 2021, Congress 
appropriated billions of dollars to respond to drought, 
including new funding in disaster and infrastructure 
supplemental appropriations for activities that are expected to 
improve drought monitoring, preparedness, and resiliency. Due 
to expected lag times in obligating these funds over multiple 
fiscal years, it will take several years before their effects 
are fully realized.
    Outside of new funding resources, some have proposed other, 
often interrelated actions to mitigate drought. Our testimony 
broadly divides these proposals into planning and preparedness, 
data and monitoring, augmenting supplies, and demand 
management.
    In regard to planning and preparedness, some observers have 
highlighted the need for better coordination of federal drought 
planning and capacity-building programs. The Biden 
Administration has also pointed to opportunities for states and 
localities to utilize FEMA funding for drought planning and 
mitigation.
    Drought data collection and integration is another point of 
emphasis by federal agencies. Various efforts to improve 
drought information and monitoring networks are ongoing. These 
efforts have the potential to strengthen the overall 
understanding of drought and strengthen NIDIS's National 
Drought Early Warning System.
    In terms of augmenting water supplies, Congress's 2016 
enactment of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the 
Nation Act authorized the first significant Reclamation 
financial support for new water storage project construction in 
decades. These funds have supported studying construction at 13 
projects across three western states with more funding pending 
allocation. Some support extension of this authority, which has 
largely been used to support non-federal water storage 
projects.
    Apart from new water storage, alternative water supplies, 
such as water reuse, recycling, and desalination is an area 
where federal support has facilitated development. Barriers to 
a wider adoption vary, depending on the technology, water 
source, and location involved, and are influenced by financial, 
regulatory, and political context. Some in Congress propose 
increased prioritization for alternative supplies with multiple 
benefits for stakeholders or for projects that are constructed 
in rural areas. Groundwater storage, aquifer recharge, and 
other similar projects are also viewed as an alternative to 
surface water storage. Congress has enacted but not funded 
authority for Reclamation to support these projects. Federal 
support for other state and local efforts to respond to 
drought, including various efforts to manage demand for water 
during times of scarcity, are also areas of consideration. We 
discuss these and other options in our written testimony.
    This concludes my remarks. I will be pleased to address any 
questions you may have at the appropriate time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Stern follows:]

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    The Chairman. First of all, thank you all very much for 
your testimonies, and we are going to start our questioning 
now. And I understand Senator Kelly has to go to head up a SAS 
hearing, and if you will, sir, go ahead and start.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 
everybody, for being here today. Commissioner Touton, good to 
see you again. I think we have all established that this 
drought is unprecedented, and I understand from your testimony, 
Commissioner, that the Colorado River is facing a structural 
deficit of between two and four million acre-feet of water next 
year. To put that amount in perspective for everybody in the 
room, or anybody who is watching, Arizona's allocation of 
Colorado River water is 2.8 million acre-feet. California, 4.4 
million. Colorado gets 3.9 million acre-feet from the river. 
Arizona has junior water rights in their allocation to the 
river.
    So if our state absorbed this two to four million acre-foot 
loss, it would wipe out deliveries--water deliveries to cities, 
tribes, and farms in Phoenix and in Tucson. This is certainly 
not in the public interest given our state's national role in 
Ag, strategic minerals, and semiconductor manufacturing. You 
mentioned, Commissioner, that Reclamation is working with Basin 
states to develop a consensus agreement to conserve more water 
in Lake Mead and Lake Powell by August. I want to make sure we 
understand your testimony. If Basin states cannot reach an 
agreement, is the Department prepared to take actions to impose 
restrictions on other states without regard to river priority?
    Ms. Touton. Thank you for that question, Senator.
    Yes, we will protect the system. But we are not at that 
decision point yet. So let's get to the table and let's figure 
this out by August.
    Senator Kelly. Okay. And when do you anticipate you might 
get to that decision point?
    Ms. Touton. For us, on the river, the August 24-month study 
is usually where we determine what our operations are for the 
next calendar year. August 16th is the date that normally--
where we had the first Tier 1 shortage announcement last year.
    Senator Kelly. Okay.
    Ms. Touton. That is what we are working toward.
    Senator Kelly. All right, thank you.
    So Arizona has been leading the Basin in conserving water 
to date. Farms have been fallowed. Tribes are forgoing their 
full water rights allocation. Cities are tightening their water 
budgets. We have worked to conserve nearly 850,000 acre-feet in 
the Lower Basin. And Arizona has done everything that Arizona 
has been asked. And we are going to continue to step up here, 
but we need partners and long-term commitments from the Federal 
Government because this is a Basin-wide problem, not just an 
Arizona problem. We laid the groundwork for increasing 
conservation and augmentation in the Bipartisan Infrastructure 
bill that was passed, and we fully funded programs like the 
Drought Contingency Plan and the 500+ Plan to keep more water 
in Lake Mead.
    Commissioner Touton, does California or the Upper Basin 
have a plan for how it will utilize resources under the Drought 
Contingency Plan?
    Ms. Touton. Those are conversations that are ongoing, 
including with the Upper Basin states, and certainly with 
California.
    Senator Kelly. So you do not know if they currently have a 
plan?
    Ms. Touton. There is the Drought Relief Operations Act that 
the Upper Basin has, but could there be more system demand 
management? Yes.
    Senator Kelly. And will the Administration be pushing 
Mexico to conserve more Colorado River water?
    Ms. Touton. That is a conversation we are having with our 
partners in Mexico. They are fully aware. We briefed them in 
the way we briefed you on what we are seeing on the river. They 
are absolutely a partner here that we need to work with.
    Senator Kelly. And, Commissioner, can the Federal 
Government move faster in deploying desalination and water 
recycling projects under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law?
    Ms. Touton. Yes, we will.
    Senator Kelly. Okay. And finally, and I might go over by 30 
seconds, I hope that is okay, Mr. Chairman.
    Based on your testimony, Arizona could see Tier 2 water 
curtailments as soon as next year. The first round of cutbacks 
last January hit farmers in Central Arizona especially hard. 
And if we do not invest more in conservation, augmentation, and 
assistance to farmers, it could raise food prices at a time 
when food prices are at record highs. The White House 
Interagency Drought Task Force recently called for a whole-of-
government response. Does Reclamation have a cost estimate for 
the resources needed to mitigate future-year shortages?
    Ms. Touton. That is something that we are talking about 
now, especially with the scale of what we are looking at and 
the magnitude of actions we need to take. But what I will say, 
Senator, is I will spend the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law 
money to make sure that we are meeting the goals as Congress 
intended, but also to provide sustainability in the West.
    Senator Kelly. Okay, and when you get that cost estimate, 
can you get it to my----
    Ms. Touton. Absolutely, Senator.
    Senator Kelly [continuing]. Office, thank you.
    And it appears that drought is outpacing the annual 
appropriations process right now. So it is faster than we are 
appropriating the money to deal with it. Could you get back to 
me on how Reclamation might benefit if Congress expanded the 
Stafford Act for drought?
    Ms. Touton. Yes, I will get back to you.
    Senator Kelly. All right, thank you.
    And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Barrasso.
    Senator Barrasso. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. O'Toole, we talked about--thank you for that amazing 
opening statement. Never checked a note, talked from the heart, 
very emotional. It hit every member of the panel. I am very 
grateful for you to be here.
    I wanted to ask you about the impact on food costs that the 
drought has brought because you made some suggestions there. 
What we are seeing is a reduction in food supplies, increasing 
costs for American families. So to address this and provide 
more water, Wyoming continues to advocate for things such as 
more water storage, to be more efficient in capturing water for 
agricultural use rather than letting it flow downstream, more 
flexibility from the Bureau in reservoir operations to better 
manage available water supplies and better forecasting data.
    Do you agree with these steps and are they going to help 
lead to more food production if we do those things?
    Mr. O'Toole. Thank you for that question, Senator. And I 
absolutely do. And our written testimony is prodigious, as you 
can tell, and it is full of specific recommendations about how 
we make these moves forward. The thing that I would like to 
emphasize though, and let's just take the cattle and the sheep 
industry that I am involved in, you know, the pricing that is 
going to the consumer has nothing to do with the producers. We 
are not receiving that benefit. And you know, what I think is, 
America is this ecological and incredible system that knows how 
to produce food and knows how to do rural communities.
    I said at a hearing with Senator Bennet recently that what 
is happening in the Amazon is a crime against humanity. And we 
have to realize that in places where good is happening we have 
to accelerate the benefits, and the base benefit for the 
American population is the food supply. We are giving away our 
food supply capability, and the recommendations from the Family 
Farm Alliance are specific. Things that this Committee has 
recommended, things that the Ag Committee has recommended. We 
just have to start implementing. If there is one message I have 
today, it is implementation.
    Please, let the--you know, there is no esprit de corps in a 
lot of the bureaucracy right now. That is a result of COVID and 
all kinds of things. The agencies have to have the ability to 
direct activities that we all agree on to get done. And the 
permitting of the reservoir in my community that I am very 
familiar with is so frustrating. Meeting two times a week in a 
no-brainer process. The Forest Service is desperate to get in 
and fix what they know is broken, to deliver water, 160,000 
acre-feet does not go down the North Platte River because the 
forest is not functioning. We know that. We have to change that 
and that is the case with every watershed in the western United 
States where the water for the Bureau of Rec comes from.
    Senator Barrasso. Well, in addition to what you talked 
about in terms of the producers not noticing, they see the 
increased prices, but not having the impact affect back to them 
is what I was--this past weekend it was the 150th anniversary 
of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. I was with all of 
them in Cheyenne. This weekend, you go to the grocery store and 
prices are up on hamburger, eggs, milk, soup, things that, you 
know, Bobbi and I go to the store to buy. So we are seeing it, 
but it is, as you point out, it is not heading back.
    I wanted to get to the next question, which is the Goshen 
Irrigation District tunnel collapse, and you have been to the 
site. I have been to the site. It left more than 100,000 acres 
of crop land in both Wyoming and Nebraska without water. It 
significantly impacted farmers and ranchers in both states, and 
that is why I introduced this bill, S. 4233, the Platte River 
Basin Critical Maintenance and Repair Act, to secure funding to 
address this. Would you agree that drought only underscores the 
need for addressing lots of aging infrastructure, such as what 
we saw there at the Goshen Irrigation District collapse?
    Mr. O'Toole. Well, it is as I have mentioned earlier, you 
know, about how the Ukrainian issue is a real issue with food 
and wheat and distribution, but it is a bigger issue than that. 
It is a bigger issue with American farmers and food production. 
And what drought has done is moved ahead trends that were 
happening without this kind of drought and climate-driven--
whatever is happening to us, is so different. It is trends that 
have been happening. And as you know, I have testified here 
before on the need for storage, on the need for forest, on the 
need--and I am, what I am trying to, you know, just giving from 
my heart, it is not happening. It is not happening at the pace 
that Americans deal with crisis.
    We are crisis managers in America, and this Committee is a 
crisis management committee. Your direction is so critical that 
it be implemented.
    Senator Barrasso. Commissioner Touton, you know, many of 
the actions taken in the past to address the drought in the 
Colorado River Basin were to increase the flexibility in how 
the Lower Basin states can store and use water. This was done 
using existing authorities. That increased flexibility is 
extended to the Lower Basin's access to water and the 
reliability of available water supplies, you know, over the 
last 20 years. What comparable increased flexibility is the 
Bureau considering or pursuing for the Upper Basin states, like 
Wyoming, in terms of what Mr. O'Toole just talked about in 
operation of federal reservoirs here?
    Ms. Touton. Sure, thank you for that question.
    First, on the aging infrastructure, your report, your 
legislation is the basis of what we have as our framework for 
what we find, so, Goshen Irrigation District and that work are 
top-of-mind for us at Reclamation.
    Regarding flexibility, that is a conversation we are having 
with the states. One of the flexibilities we had under DROA--
the Drought Relief Operations Act--is to move water from 
Flaming Gorge down to Lake Powell. So there are conversations 
that need to be had. And it is not Reclamation telling the 
states what to do. It has to be--what is it you need? Here are 
my authorities. And if we do not have the ability to do that, 
to have a conversation with this Committee.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    I will go now with my questions, very quickly. So this is 
to all five of you, and if you could think about it, and as 
quickly as you can because we only have five minutes. But what 
role should Congress and the Federal Government have in western 
drought and water management going forward?
    Mr. O'Toole, you have been very direct in some of the 
things that you have said. This does not make sense at all. So 
if we could start with Ms. Touton, if you could tell me what 
you think we could do and help you do that job better to make 
sure that western drought does not significantly get worse, but 
we can improve.
    Ms. Touton. First, thank you to this Committee for the 
investment of $8.3 billion for just investment in storage. It 
is roughly equivalent in the last 18 months of this 
Administration that the previous Administration invested. So we 
invested $461 million in storage alone. So resources are always 
of assistance, but really, it is having to style----
    The Chairman. How quick is it going to be put out? How 
quickly will that money be invested?
    Ms. Touton. Some of those we have already put out, frankly. 
There are some projects that we are working on, Los Vaqueros in 
California being an example of it.
    The Chairman. Mr. Entsminger.
    Mr. Entsminger. I think Congress needs to make massive 
investments in agricultural efficiencies. I agree with Mr. 
O'Toole that we need to prioritize food security, but we cannot 
balance the structural deficit by evacuating cities. So we are 
going to need to make our ability to grow the same amount of 
food with less water a priority.
    The Chairman. Dr. Hall.
    Dr. Hall. I think, certainly, one of the more urgent issues 
is providing the information that we need, and that includes 
continuing robust support for the USGS, NRCS, and management of 
data systems, approving Senator Cortez Masto's bill to 
implement OpenET in the USGS, and I think more broadly, the 
support for giving the Bureau of Reclamation the broad 
flexibility to work with states on new approaches, like 
groundwater management and groundwater storage. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Mr. Stern.
    Mr. Stern. Well, Senator, as you know, we at CRS would not 
necessarily recommend any one specific approach, but I would 
say that there is more support among observers for activities 
that can be done from the ground up, and stakeholder-driven 
things that may vary from one basin to the next than there is 
for top-down command and control types of federal activity.
    The Chairman. Mr. O'Toole, do you have anything else you 
want to add to your--something you think will be the most 
urgent thing we could do?
    Mr. O'Toole. Senator, I testified in front of the World 
Bank last year as part of the climate meetings I went to, and 
the biggest word that they appreciated was scale. And in a 
meeting with major foundations, Sunday, on the forest, they 
said we are nibbling. And that is the problem. We are nibbling 
at a time when we have crisis and we need to move to scale.
    The Chairman. Ms. Touton, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law 
provided $8.3 billion, as you have acknowledged. What steps is 
Reclamation taking to ensure the efficient delivery? That is 
what we are concerned about--are these funds being efficiently 
delivered to the source so we can basically cure some of the 
problems we have?
    Ms. Touton. Absolutely. The first thing we did was hire the 
hirers. We hired--I want to get the number right for the 
record--but it is 86 people within the last six months. 
Engineers, but also acquisitions and grant specialists so that 
we can get that money out. And part of this is also a level of 
transparency. We constantly have stakeholder sessions and 
briefings also with Congress so that you know what we are 
doing. And then finally, putting capacity where we can 
immediately, so those can get done. Rural water being an 
example of that, and getting those resources out the door.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator Lankford.
    Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for 
all the witnesses here as well, to be able to talk this 
through.
    My state is somewhat unique in this conversation today 
because if you are in Oklahoma, the eastern side of my state 
gets a tremendous amount of rain and the western side of my 
state is the stopping point on it, and so we face intense 
droughts in the West and we are growing tall timber in the 
East. So we get this. So let me walk through a couple of things 
that may be unique to my state, but also may translate into 
other areas. Moving waters by pipeline and actually trying to 
be able to transition water from East to West at times in some 
of these border states and areas--is that being explored at all 
as options and possibilities? Obviously, there is compact and 
there are other things with other states as water continues to 
be able to move south across the east, but how much is that 
even being discussed?
    Ms. Touton.
    Ms. Touton. We are looking at all options, but certainly 
being able to utilize what is in Basin, what we have within our 
reservoirs is our priority. You know, a lot of our projects 
require authorization of Congress with a feasibility study. And 
so, should that be where Congress wants us to go, that is what 
we will do, but will say that I am focused on what we have now 
and what is in our Basins at the moment.
    Senator Lankford. It has been interesting to me that in the 
past, go back several years ago, we actually had to have an act 
of Congress to move water from within my state from east to 
west because it was a different Reclamation area. Though it was 
Oklahoma's water, it was not crossing any other state boundary 
and it was not even violating any of our agreements with the 
states around us and where the water ends up at. Just moving it 
east to west took an act of Congress to be able to move that 
through Reclamation areas. Is that something that needs to stay 
in place? Has that become a regulatory barrier or an issue that 
we need to resolve?
    Ms. Touton. I am happy to continue that conversation, 
Senator. Oklahoma is certainly at the heart of the 100th 
meridian of really seeing the drought, and where the water 
floods.
    Senator Lankford. Yes, we experience both on that.
    The interesting idea from some of the guys in the 
southwestern part of my state that do a lot of irrigation--
there is a lot of cotton and other things that are in that 
area. One of the challenges that we have is power-related as 
well. If we are going to do drip irrigation in some of those 
areas to reduce the amount of water usage that is there, it is 
a great idea, it is a good use of water, except you also have 
to have electricity in those areas, in very rural areas, to be 
able to do this. Is this part of the dialogue Bureau of 
Reclamation is currently having right now about how we are 
going to manage water, to also talk about how we are going to 
manage electricity and power?
    Ms. Touton. Absolutely. And I know you have legislation on 
that that we talked about earlier this month. So I am happy to 
continue that conversation.
    Senator Lankford. Would be great.
    Mr. O'Toole, let me ask--you make a statement in your 
written document about how water management of the West is 
becoming too inflexible. You made a statement earlier about 
permitting and regulations, and how it is not functioning now. 
But there is a statement that you made--you said you were 
facing a regulatory drought as well as a hydrologic drought. 
Take us a little bit deeper in that because this seems to be an 
area that you are focusing in on where you are talking about 
how the bureaucracy is not talking to the bureaucracy and it is 
locking up and we are not able to resolve the issues there. Can 
you give me an example of that?
    Mr. O'Toole. So part of the conflict with agriculture in my 
world is lack of water, obviously, with the drought and that 
part, but there is also a conservation, fish, wildlife piece 
that is critically important and many acres have been taken out 
of production because of ESA issues, for example. The changes 
in the NEPA process are disturbing to us because we need to get 
things done. I have said it over and over again. And the 
process is not as user-friendly as it could be. So the 
regulatory drought, and I will use a perfect example--the 
National Marine Fisheries Service is a duplicative agency that 
is working, sometimes at odds, with the Fish and Wildlife 
Service because they are fish only, when in fact, when you are 
looking, particularly in today's world where you have, you 
know, you have birds, you have fish, you have other mammals, 
you have farmers. And that whole system, when it is not working 
smoothly, is taking acres, in fact, it is hundreds of thousands 
of acres out of production because of this regulatory process 
that our irrigators have to go through.
    Senator Lankford. So what would need to change to be able 
to make that work?
    Mr. O'Toole. Say that again?
    Senator Lankford. What would need to change to be able to 
make that work better then?
    Mr. O'Toole. Well, Senator Barrasso is no longer here, but 
we spent, really, three years working on the ESA process with 
conservation groups, with a real cross section. We did not get 
it done. We did not get it across the line. But we have to have 
a system that works, and right now we have so much duplication, 
and to some extent, part of what I like to talk about is, are 
we doing solutions or are we doing agendas? And so, we have to 
figure out what are the solutions and then overcome the 
agendas, and to some extent, the litigation industry in the 
West has been very effective in keeping us, for example, 
cleaning up the forest.
    Senator Lankford. Okay. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
    As you know, our western states are suffering from 
aridification, and you will notice I did not say drought, but 
aridification. Not to mention, extreme wildfires as we speak 
that are burning in my state and Arizona and others. But I 
would just start because this is a drought hearing--this is not 
some random event. It is, frankly, a direct result of the lack 
of action on climate that we have seen for more than 20 years. 
And we all, collectively, own that.
    Now, Dr. Hall, as you know, this is a drought hearing, but 
we have experienced drought before, and what you and others on 
the panel said today is that what we are experiencing is now, 
actually, unprecedented. You know, I would make the point that 
it is not a drought if this is our new normal. You used the 
word aridification. What does that mean and how do we manage if 
this is the new normal?
    Dr. Hall. Thank you, Senator Heinrich. You make an 
exceptionally important point. And I think one important thing 
we have to realize is that we do not actually know how this is 
going to evolve. And so we have to be aware and continuously 
adaptive, and that gets to the point that I was describing 
about collaboration, which also addresses some of the points 
about regulation. And what you can do in collaboration is you 
can work together in an organized way to come up with programs 
and then figure out how to make them work with the different, 
various regulations.
    So on the point of aridification, we have, in the past, 
tended to view our water management through a lens of 
stability. I had one entire class in my graduate work on the 
different distributions--normal and non-normal distributions of 
the climate patterns in the past, and that is what we did all 
the designs on. That class, as difficult as it was, is no 
longer even useful. We have to throw all of that out and 
increase our real-time and in near real-time monitoring and 
information processing and be prepared to make adjustments as 
we discover how the new climate processes are affecting our 
water resources.
    Senator Heinrich. Commissioner, I want you to share with 
us, again, how many acre-feet we are going to have to conserve 
on the Colorado Basin to avoid dead pool in Lake Powell and 
then, because most people do not really understand what an 
acre-foot is, talk to us about how much water that is.
    Ms. Touton. Sure.
    Senator Heinrich. And yes, just start there.
    Ms. Touton. So an acre-foot is exactly what that sounds 
like, an acre of land with a foot deep of water. And the way 
that we look at that is, that is enough water, roughly 325,000 
gallons, for a family of four for an entire year.
    And so, when you look at Lake Powell and when you look at 
Lake Mead, this is just for critical elevations. We are looking 
at two million to four million acre-feet, starting in 2023, 
that we need to conserve.
    Senator Heinrich. We have talked a lot about the Colorado 
River Basin. Talk to me about the Rio Grande Basin and what you 
are seeing there and then what actions you are able to take 
there to address the same patterns that were experienced on the 
Rio Grande.
    Ms. Touton. The Rio Grande is not unique to the entire West 
or the Colorado River Basin. Demands of the system, tribal, 
ecosystem, irrigation, drought, as well as listed species, but 
one of the things that we did with Elephant Butte was a 
WaterSMART grant. So this is low-hanging fruit. Reclamation 
spent $1.8 million on efficiencies of the system. You asked me 
for numbers, Senator. It is roughly 9,000 acre-feet of 
conserved water. So that is real water gained in efficiencies. 
So that is short-term. We are also looking at operational 
flexibilities with the system and then longer term in helping 
to solve longstanding conflicts.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Now we have Senator Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Touton, let's start with you. The drought has caused a 
lot of problems in my home State of Utah. You know, as is 
happening in some other places, but to a pretty acute degree in 
Utah, ranchers are delaying putting livestock on the range. 
Growth has, of course, been impacted by water uncertainty, and 
a lot of local economies are being stretched thin by virtue of 
their inability to access some Bureau assets like Lake Powell. 
I really appreciate some of the recent actions/decisions made 
by the Bureau of Reclamation to boost water levels at Lake 
Powell, including, of course, the release of 500,000 acre-feet 
from Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the withholding of an 
additional 480,000 acre-feet from release downriver from Lake 
Powell. What can you tell me about the Bureau's priorities 
moving forward as they relate to water levels at Lake Powell?
    Ms. Touton. Thank you, Senator, and good morning.
    We have a great partnership with the State of Utah. Gene 
Shawcroft is one of the principals we work with in the Basin 
states. What we are prioritizing right now is really short-
term. What actions to make up that two to four million acre-
feet in the Basin to help protect Lake Mead and Lake Powell, 
because all of the actions that you mentioned--the nearly one 
million acre-feet that we did this year--buy us a year. And we 
cannot be in the same place next year where we are talking 
about critical levels to protect power pool. So we are spending 
a significant amount of time. This is the priority for us 
between the next 60 days, to figure out a plan to close that 
gap.
    Senator Lee. All right, yes. Thank you.
    Ms. Touton. Yes, sir.
    Senator Lee. Mr. O'Toole, I have done a lot of work on NEPA 
reform, policy reforms in the NEPA space, because I agree with 
you, these are essential to making sure we can do what we need 
to do. As I have engaged in that effort, it has become apparent 
that some Members of Congress resist changes to NEPA. And their 
responses are usually kind of interesting. They include some 
variation of the argument that, you know, we do not need to do 
this because the agencies already have authority to do this 
through their own existing rulemaking procedures. It is an 
interesting argument to make, especially because, regardless of 
what they have in mind, and regardless of the fact that they 
may have tools at their disposal to do it, they don't because 
things don't change in this regard. I think in many instances 
they are debilitated by a fear of litigation, and that 
obsessive fear of litigation, while understandable, makes it 
very, very unlikely that they impose these limitations on 
themselves.
    What do you believe Congress needs to do in order to break 
the logjam with regard to NEPA?
    Mr. O'Toole. Thank you, sir.
    You know, categorical exclusion is another part of that 
NEPA process which gives flexibility to the agencies. The river 
that I live on crosses the state line 32 times. That means that 
our valley is both Colorado and Wyoming. So I am in two 
forests, two BLMs, two game and fish, two fish and wildlife, 
and have a lot of experience with agencies. It is human-driven, 
and there is a fear of failure, or a fear now, as I expressed 
earlier, you know, the agency people need to have a mission. 
And we are going to have to send a message. We have sent money. 
There is money in the infrastructure bill to achieve, but that 
is not going to be achieved if we don't have a mission to use 
the tools. And I think that, you know, my personal experiences, 
you know, I have the best conservation district in the U.S. I 
really am so lucky. Just give you an example, 17 percent of 
farmers use it, in ours it is 90 because we have trust built.
    We use categorical exclusion. The surrounding conservation 
districts are coming to us asking--how do you get that done? 
Because you do not have the agency people have experience with 
it and because of the litigation issue that you mentioned, that 
I have mentioned, it is really inhibiting our ability to do 
what we have all agreed we need to do.
    Senator Lee. Now, drought data collection has become a 
point of emphasis by some federal agencies in recent years. 
Some proposals would go so far as to use satellites to quantify 
evaporation and also quantify consumptive use in addition to 
evaporation. I have heard some concerns raised by some 
agricultural producers that overly intrusive monitoring, while 
it has some potential to help, could also create other 
problems, could lead to burdensome regulation of private water 
resources. Do you share those concerns and do you feel there 
are protections that could be offered to agricultural producers 
to help protect their interests while also allowing for greater 
data collection?
    Mr. O'Toole. Well, I am a big fan of data and science, but 
I will tell you, my new friend, Mr. Hall, is in the process of 
negotiation with the Family Farm Alliance over the OpenET 
issues because of the potential for misuse of the data. And we 
want data. I want data to do the right thing, but we have to 
have some protection because, as you all know, farmers seem to 
be described as a monolith. We are individual businesses, of 
families, mostly, and we cannot stand the vulnerability of 
litigation. I have had it happen to me on a situation where we 
won finally because the State of Wyoming on bighorn sheep 
defended us using the Forest Service. But an individual is so 
vulnerable, and one thing we never talk about--bankers don't 
care about conservation. They don't care about these issues. 
They care about getting paid. And when one individual producer 
sort of gets demonized because of the use of data, we want to 
make sure that that is done in a way that there are protections 
for those individual family producers.
    Senator Lee. Great. Thank you.
    Mr. O'Toole. Yes, sir.
    Senator Barrasso [presiding]. Senator King.
    Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, absolutely important 
hearing.
    First, this is a cycle. And I have found a very--I did not 
develop it, but found a very interesting chart that shows the 
water situation in the West over the last 1,200 years. And what 
it shows is-- up and down. And we are at the second lowest 
point that we have been. The last one was around 1500. 
Interestingly, the West was settled and developed during a 
period of relative high water, and we are now in a situation 
where we are at this low point. One of the questions is, will 
the low point--historically, these drought periods lasted about 
20 years. The question is, is the climate change effect going 
to make it a much more permanent kind of situation?
    But anyway, I would like to submit this chart for the 
record.
    Senator Barrasso. Without objection.
    [The chart referred to follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. A second observation is that the amount of 
water in the world is constant. It never changes. It has not 
changed since the dinosaurs. The question is, where is it? 
Unfortunately, right now, it is in a lot of places where it 
does not do you any good. In Greenland, I have flown over 
Greenland in a helicopter and seen the enormous amount of 
water. In one day last summer, eight billion tons of Greenland 
melted. That is enough to cover Florida in two inches of water. 
And the question is, how do we move water? And Senator Lankford 
asked the interesting question about pipelines. Now, and 
obviously, a pipeline from Greenland is not possible, but from 
other sections of the country, I think that is something that 
needs to be discussed. It is not something we have ever thought 
about before, but we have pipelines for oil and gas and we do 
have, in some areas, huge pipelines for transferring water, for 
example, in New York State, down to the city.
    Desalinization, we have to talk about. All that water in 
Greenland is fresh water that is going into the ocean. So I 
guess, Dr. Hall, how feasible and economically viable is 
massive desalinization from the Pacific Southwest into this 
region to alleviate this problem? Is that just fantasy, or is 
there a possibility that that is something that we could invest 
in and it would make a difference?
    Dr. Hall. Thank you, Senator King.
    As a water resource engineer, I will tell you that we like 
to build things, and we have studied lots of possibilities and 
some that--some we have implemented. Some were good ideas. Some 
turned out not to be so good ideas. And some are just not cost-
effective. And so, with respect to pipelines and desalination, 
the cost issue is certainly a big one. Some of the most 
expensive water in the West, on the order of $2,000 an acre-
foot, comes from the desal plant that was recently completed, I 
think recently, in the last five years or so at Carlsbad and 
San Diego. And for San Diego, who is at the end of the Colorado 
River water distribution system----
    Senator King. But also adjacent to the ocean.
    Dr. Hall. And adjacent to the ocean, with, in fact, an 
already existing outfall to help dispose of the brine at a 
lower cost, it made sense as part of a resilience portfolio for 
the city. And in some other targeted areas, desal does make 
sense.
    Senator King. But to reach the kind of scale to relieve 
this whole region is not really feasible. Is that your 
suggestion?
    Dr. Hall. At this time, it is not feasible due to cost and 
other environmental issues.
    Senator King. And interestingly, looking at this chart, the 
drought sections are surrounded on both sides by more water--
excessive precipitation, which suggests, as Senator Barrasso 
talked about storage, but a lot of storage. I mean, a couple of 
years would not really solve it if you are talking about a 20- 
to 40-year cycle. So storage is part of the solution also, 
isn't it?
    Dr. Hall. Certainly, storage can be really valuable. And 
especially in our current situation, it can be a helpful tool 
in making our deployment of the water more flexible. In most of 
the West, frankly, there is not enough water to fill the 
storage.
    Senator King. Today.
    Dr. Hall. Today.
    Senator King. But I am talking about in the 80s, there was 
an excessive rainfall in the West, which, if we could have 
captured that and held it for 20 years, it might have helped.
    Let me ask one other, not a question, but just an 
observation. Fascinating experiment going on in California now 
of building solar panels over canals, which will generate 
electricity, but also diminish evaporation. If you could build 
a solar farm on top of Lake Powell, you could supply 
electricity for all of the West and diminish the enormous water 
loss to evaporation. I am not ready to undertake that project, 
but I think there is--we have really got to think in new and 
different ways here.
    Dr. Hall. Yes, absolutely.
    Senator King. Because this is, as many people say, 
unprecedented. At least it is unprecedented in the last 500 
years. Thank you all for your testimony.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator King.
    Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Let me just thank the 
Chair and Ranking Member for this important conversation today, 
and what we are talking about is drought in the West, not just 
along the Colorado River, but along in the western states, but 
we have the benefit of so many of you that have knowledge about 
the Colorado River. And I want to start there because in 
Nevada, the Colorado River is very important for our needs in 
the state.
    And Mr. Entsminger, I want to put this in perspective, 
because there has been a lot of talk about the water. If we are 
just talking about the water along the Colorado River, it 
really follows the law of the river, which was implemented, 
what, in 1920, along the seven Basin states, and how they would 
allocate that water and share it because, quite honestly, if 
you want more water out of the Colorado, you are taking it from 
some other state. And so, there was an agreement. And can you 
talk to me, how much water is Nevada allocated out of that 15 
million acre-feet of water?
    Mr. Entsminger. Our allocation is 300,000 acre-feet----
    Senator Cortez Masto. Is that the lowest amongst all of the 
states?
    Mr. Entsminger. Yes, by far. If you add up the seven states 
and Mexico, Nevada has the legal entitlement to 1.8 percent of 
the river.
    Senator Cortez Masto. That's right, because we have the 
seven Basin states and then over a million acre-feet have to go 
to Mexico as well, along the Colorado River. So because of the 
lowest allocation we have, and now we have three million people 
in the state, talk a little bit about what the Las Vegas Valley 
Water Authority did, really, in early 2000 to address the water 
needs of the people in Nevada that were taking water, 
including, you know, across the state, but particularly in 
Southern Nevada, where we have most of the population. What did 
the water authority do? Because I think conservation is key 
here, and it plays a great role in the story of what we have 
done in Nevada to augment some of this water. Would you talk a 
little bit about that?
    Mr. Entsminger. Absolutely, and I am as big of a fan as 
anybody else if there is a solution to bring in more water, but 
what we have seen in the last 20 years is really--it is all 
about conservation. It is all about demand management. And our 
wake-up call came in 2002, which is still the driest year in 
the recorded history of the river, when only 25 percent of 
normal inflows came in. And so, beginning in 2002, we upped our 
WaterSMART landscape program, paying people. We currently pay 
$3 per square foot for people to remove turf. And as I 
mentioned in my opening, we have now taken out enough turf in 
the Las Vegas Valley to lay an 18-inch-wide piece of sod all 
the way around the circumference of the globe. We have very 
strict water waste enforcement. We have a tiered rate structure 
so that those who use more water pay more for it, and use those 
funds to fund our conservation programs. And overall, it has 
led to a dramatic decline in water usage. As I said in my 
opening, we are using 26 percent less Colorado River water 
today than we were in 2002, despite our population increasing 
by 800,000 people.
    Senator Cortez Masto. What do you anticipate, because you 
anticipate how many years in the future that we are going to 
need water. Talk a little bit about that. Is Nevada and Las 
Vegas in dire need of water right now, or you are planning for 
the future with population growth included in that, is that 
correct?
    Mr. Entsminger. That is correct. So we do a 50-year 
resource plan, and we do it every single year so that we always 
have a fresh five-decade outlook on what we think our 
population is going to do, which for Southern Nevada, we 
project it will increase from about 2.4 million today to about 
3.8 million in 2076. So we are always looking out into the 
future, and we then match up what we have to accomplish in 
conservation in order to be able to accommodate that population 
growth with, again, the smallest water supply on the river. So 
we are, right now, using about 112 gallons per-person, per-day, 
and we project we need to continue to drive down that use to 86 
gallons per-person per-day by 2035 in order to be able to 
accommodate that growth.
    Senator Cortez Masto. And that includes back in, what, 
August 2021, and I think the Commissioner referred to this, is 
there was a Tier 1 shortage condition for Lake Mead, which 
required us to allocate less water, right? Reduce our water 
consumption from Lake Mead by how much?
    Mr. Entsminger. That was by 20,000 acre-feet, but 
fortunately because of our conservation efforts, the shortage 
declaration does not mean you have to use less water than you 
are using today, it reduces your legal entitlement. So we 
reduced our entitlement from 300,000 to 279,000, but last year 
we only used 242. So because of two decades worth of 
preparation and conservation planning, we did not have to 
actually have our customers reduce the amount of water they 
used last year.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. And I know I am running 
out of time, but one final thing. We are landlocked. So what 
else should we be doing? What else do we need to be thinking 
about to address the water needs in the western states, 
particularly along the Colorado River right now?
    Mr. Entsminger. We need to help all of our friends and 
partners in the other six states and Mexico continue on their 
conservation journey. As you know, with the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law, there is funding for the major regional 
recycling facility in Southern California and that is an 
example of across-state-lines cooperation, and I think, a model 
for other things that need to be done. But every user in every 
sector needs to be planning for how they are going to take care 
of their share of the pain.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Is every user doing just that?
    Mr. Entsminger. Not yet.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Senator Barrasso. Senator King, any additional questions? 
Okay.
    Mr. O'Toole, I believe building more water storage is going 
to give Wyoming and other states the water they need, provide 
system resiliency, also help maintain stream flows, benefit 
fish and wildlife. What do you believe are the associated 
benefits of smaller, watershed-sized storage projects?
    Mr. O'Toole. Well, for example, the project I talked to you 
about in our community is a two-state project, as I described 
earlier. And so, you know, as you know better than anybody, the 
Endangered Species Act looms over all of us. And having the 
flexibility of water for migratory birds, for example, you 
know, our family is working on Upper Colorado endangered fish 
and sage-grouse. And having storage to release later, once you 
have seen, you know, I hope this does not sound too bold, but 
three years ago I could have told you what was going to happen 
to Mead and Lake Powell because you were not seeing the 
springs. The springs in my world are drying up. So I am putting 
in solar wells and solar panels and doing every innovative 
thing I can do. You can have all the grass in the world, but if 
you don't have water, you can't run livestock.
    So, you know, it has such multiple benefits. And part of 
those is protection in, you know, when I am with my grandkids 
riding around and we see migratory birds, we are as excited as 
we are about the genetics of our livestock because we realize 
we are in a system. And this idea of watersheds with small 
storage at the tops of the watersheds, the one we are looking 
at, it is at 8,200 feet. That takes away the issue that Mr. 
Entsminger talked about with losing, you know, water from heat 
and those issues. So high mountain storage and watershed 
storage are the future.
    Senator Barrasso. Ms. Touton, if I could just ask if, in 
terms of the Bureau, would they invest and look for more water 
storage opportunities in Wyoming and in the Upper Basin states, 
as we just heard described by Mr. O'Toole?
    Ms. Touton. Yes, sir, yes.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
    Senator King, you had one more question?
    Senator King. Yes, I also wanted to mention that when you 
store water you also are storing electricity, potentially, if 
you have hydro associated. So that is another benefit.
    Mr. Entsminger, evaporation--how big a problem is 
evaporation in a large lake like Lake Powell or Lake Mead? And 
are there technologies, and I don't know the answer to this, I 
am genuinely looking for the information--a film of plastic, a 
non-toxic chemical that would diminish or eliminate 
evaporation, or is evaporation not worth worrying about? My 
sense is, it is a big number.
    Mr. Entsminger. It is a huge number. Just between Lake Mead 
and Lake Powell, you are talking about almost two million acre-
feet of evaporation every year. So to put that in context, they 
evaporate more, just from those two reservoirs, than Las Vegas 
uses in seven years.
    Senator King. So is there anybody on the panel that might 
know, are there people thinking about the technology of 
limiting and diminishing evaporation, or is that just something 
we have to live with?
    Mr. Entsminger. We have seen, unless maybe one of the other 
witnesses is aware of something I am not, at the retail level, 
all of our reservoirs in Las Vegas are covered. They are 
underground, and we have seen, in other places, there are 
essentially, you know, ping pong balls that can float on top of 
the water that radically reduce evaporation, but those are all 
pretty small scale. I mean, you are talking about reservoirs 
that, you know, go on for, you know, hundreds of miles and 
across state lines. So I don't know of a technology to stop 
that.
    Senator King. Dr. Hall, is there any thought given to how 
to diminish evaporation on a large scale?
    Dr. Hall. Yes, I think when we talk about evaporation and 
transpiration from plants, it is a really important question in 
our overall water balance. And in fact, living in Northern New 
Mexico, seeing the fires, I realize very keenly how much 
management of our forests makes a difference, and there is lots 
of work going on now to better understand how forest management 
can reduce the transpiration from the forests in the watersheds 
and provide other benefits--improved habitat, improved 
recreational experiences, et cetera. And so, to the point of 
Mr. O'Toole's spring flow diminishment, that is something we 
are seeing across the West and undoubtedly, higher evaporation 
rates, which are going to happen when you have higher 
temperatures, are part of that issue.
    And so, to the point of investing in our natural 
infrastructure, looking at forest management very carefully and 
implementing the right management for our forests and frankly, 
to rangelands as well, to improve the water yield and provide 
other benefits, is a really important thing for us to invest in 
and get figured out and get moving on.
    Senator King. Well, Ms. Touton, I hope that this may be an 
area of research. You are doing a lot of practical things, and 
it may be that we should be talking to the Department of 
Energy, but your office may be right place to think about what 
are scalable technologies to reduce evaporation, which we have 
learned is a very significant number. If you could save enough 
water to supply Las Vegas by controlling evaporation on those 
two lakes, that would be a substantial win. So research, it 
seems to me, is a place where we could do some good here.
    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Barrasso. Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, and you teed me up nicely 
because I want to talk about the ET bill that both Mr. 
Entsminger and Dr. Hall, you talked about. This is the Open 
Access Evapotranspiration Data Act that I introduced. The 
information is already there. Our goal is to make it public. 
And why is that important as we talk about evaporation, 
transpiration, water usage? Why do we need this data?
    So Dr. Hall, I am going to ask you first and then Mr. 
Entsminger, if you would follow up.
    Dr. Hall. Thank you, Senator.
    You know, my vision of the future of the West includes a 
resilient agricultural community. Some of my most rewarding 
times as a professional have been when I am working with 
farmers and ranchers, early in northeastern Colorado, more 
recently in Colorado, in California, and Arizona. And if we 
want that irrigated agriculture future to be resilient, we are 
going to have to manage that water more closely. And to do 
that, we need good information on how much water is being used 
by the crops, how much water is infiltrating into the ground, 
or recharge our groundwater and later, recharge streams and 
rivers. And information on the evapotranspiration of the 
consumptive use is a key part of better understanding that 
water balance.
    And it is important to know that this information has been 
available for many years. It is a technology that is well 
established, and some states, like Idaho, have used it in a 
systematic way for decades. But that information, up to this 
point, has been primarily in the hands of a handful of 
entities--those who have the money to invest in it and pay 
someone to provide that information. And so, we felt it was 
really important to put that same information into the hands of 
everyone who makes water management decisions, from the 
irrigators on the farms, water district managers, groundwater 
basin managers, and to make it more easily accessible to state 
agencies, et cetera.
    And that is what the OpenET platform does. It puts that 
data into the hands of everyone so that we can begin looking at 
the same data, diminish the arguments about whether that method 
is a little bit better, or this method is a little bit better, 
and converge on a piece of information that we can all use and 
understand how it is affecting the water decisions we make.
    Senator Cortez Masto. And the idea is that it is available 
to everyone, including farmers and ranchers?
    Dr. Hall. That is absolutely right and----
    Senator Cortez Masto. Because, let me just say, and Mr. 
O'Toole, thank you for being here because I have worked very 
closely with the farmers and ranchers in Nevada. I have found 
that my farmers and ranchers are better scientists and 
environmentalists about the land than some of the scientists 
that have been at the table because they have to be. They know 
the land so well. They have lived it. They live off of it and 
they respect it. So the purpose here is to make sure that that 
data, which already exists, is also in the hands of our 
ranchers and farmers so that they can utilize it to their 
benefit as well. That is the purpose here.
    And Mr. Entsminger, anything else?
    Mr. Entsminger. Well, you know, working for a water 
utility, we are firm believers that you cannot manage what you 
cannot measure. And the OpenET bill will give us the tools to 
measure where exactly the water is being consumed. And I will 
give you an example from our service territory of how something 
like that could be deployed on the ground, and we did our own 
ET studies, figured out that the type of turf that has 
historically been installed in the Las Vegas Valley uses 73 
gallons of water per square foot each year. But then we found 
some other species of turf that only use 55 gallons per square 
foot per year. So even in places where we want to have grass, 
which is not very many places in Las Vegas, but in our schools, 
in our parks, we can replace that thirstier grass with less 
consumptive uses and that is the kind of thing that that OpenET 
bill could probably be deployed for on the ground.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Senator Barrasso. Senator Wyden.
    Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    This is going to be a question for you, Dr. Hall, and let 
me just kind of set the table here. The summer begins next 
week. More than half of my state is already suffering extreme 
or severe drought. Seventeen Oregon counties have been declared 
to be in a state of emergency because of water shortages. This 
is the first time that Deschutes County has been in a drought 
emergency three years in a row. Now, drought conditions have 
been so bad in central Oregon that for 18 straight months, the 
Wickiup Reservoir, the primary source of irrigation water for 
Jefferson County, set record lows for month's-end contents.
    Now, Commissioner Touton knows how drought has hurt the 
Klamath Basin, where the lack of water is devastating the farms 
and tribal resources and causing residential wells to run dry. 
And then, on top of this, the first responders and experts on 
the ground expect that the drought conditions are going to fuel 
wildfire risks beyond even the historically bad conditions of 
the past couple years. Dr. Hall, you talked eloquently about 
the need for collaboration--good faith collaboration--because 
that is how you bring people together to tackle these 
challenges. In Oregon, we call it the Oregon Way. The best 
ideas are ones that have broad buy-in from all of those who are 
actually impacted. I wrote the Watershed Results Act to 
encourage people to come together to expand and improve 
watershed opportunities, looking back at both agriculture and 
environmental needs. Specifically, my legislation would fund 
pilot projects to address the impact of drought on watersheds. 
These pilot projects use the best available science and would 
identify quantifiable outcomes before they were able to secure 
funding.
    So what are your thoughts with respect to these science-
based, collaborative approaches?
    Dr. Hall. Thank you very much, Senator Wyden, and I very 
much applaud your efforts to bring good science into decision-
making through your Watershed Results Act. And as I described 
before, I think this concept of bringing the best minds 
together, bringing all the ideas from the different 
stakeholders together in a dynamic, collaborative way, is the 
way we are going to shape the future of the West that we want 
to see, and we need good information for that. The quicker that 
we can get on the same page, understand the challenge that we 
are facing, what our current situation is, and our trajectory 
is, the more quickly we can get to solving problems.
    A handful of things that I think are important in our work, 
where we need better science and data, is in the area of 
proactive groundwater management. We have this incredible, 
natural infrastructure below our ground that, frankly, provides 
the drinking water and water supply for most of the rural West, 
and we can better understand that if we invest in the right 
data and begin to use that and manage it more proactively. I 
think another issue is short-term forecasting. We have so much 
better information now about what is actually going to happen, 
not just today, but over the next several days in our rain and 
snow systems, and knowing that data sooner allows us to make 
better decisions on reservoir operations and improve the yield 
of the projects that we already have in place.
    Senator Wyden. Very good.
    One question for you, Commissioner, glad to see you. You 
have a lot of experience with water issues. The Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law provided $8.3 billion for investments in 
western water infrastructure and climate resilience. I am not 
sure, I guess my colleagues have touched on it, but I am not 
sure it is clear in our part of the world what steps the Bureau 
of Reclamation is taking to ensure the best possible efficiency 
in the delivery of these funds to get good science out there to 
manage water management in our part of the world.
    Ms. Touton. Thank you, Senator.
    One of the things that we did this year that I have 
mentioned is, step one is to hire the hirers and hire the 
people who can help get out the grants, who specialize in 
acquisitions, and certainly hire engineers. And so we staffed 
up, I think, by 86 people just to be able to implement the bill 
and get those funds out the door. Certainly, transparency in 
our actions, in our FY22 plan, our FY23 spend plan, talking 
with Congress about our path forward. So really, communicating 
with everyone across the board. But certainly, on Friday, we 
get the privilege of breaking ground on a $100 million dam 
safety investment in California to celebrate our 120th 
anniversary. And we are coming to Yellowstone and Montana to do 
the same thing.
    Senator Wyden. Thank you. Were you finished?
    Ms. Touton. Yes, Senator, thank you.
    Senator Wyden. Okay, great.
    I think the point I was just trying to make, Mr. Chairman, 
if you set the politics aside in this area of watersheds and 
drought challenges, it is amazing what you can do. And I will 
not bore my colleagues with long stories, but when I came to 
the Senate, a little bit after I arrived, I rushed to the floor 
with a brilliant idea for letting government work across 
agencies and with the private sector on watersheds. And when I 
got there, the Chairman of the Committee--and Senator Barrasso 
knows him--Senator Gorton said, Ron, this is a really good 
idea, but maybe we ought to correct it. And he went out and did 
a bunch of corrections, put it in a big bill and when I arrived 
home, people said, this watershed approach--the Wyden 
Amendment--is a brilliant idea. And I turned to my staff and I 
said, gee, I don't know what the Wyden Amendment is. And it is 
now being used across jurisdictions with the private sector 
because Slade Gorton was willing, as a Senior Republican, to 
help a very new Senator who wanted to do the right thing, 
wanted to work with people.
    So Senator Barrasso and our colleagues here, there is hope 
on these watershed issues. There is hope on drought because it 
does cross party lines, and let's get together and get it done. 
Thank you.
    Senator King. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to note, I 
learned subsequently that I am not crazy. There are, in fact, 
very large floating solar projects, mostly in Asia, one as big 
as 320 megawatts. So this is something that I think we really 
ought to think about.
    And Ms. Touton, you have 2,000 miles of canals--nice place 
for solar projects.
    Ms. Touton. I am happy to follow up with you, Senator.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Senator Barrasso. I have one last question. Ms. Touton, 
talking about bipartisan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law 
included appropriations for implementing the Colorado River 
Drought Contingency Plans, $50 million of the appropriation was 
designated to implement the Upper Basin Contingency Plan. 
Wyoming and the Upper Basin states compiled a detailed list of 
infrastructure investments and related efforts to advance 
implementation of the plan and presented the list to the Bureau 
in January. Could you give us an update on the status in 
providing the funding for these infrastructure investments?
    Ms. Touton. Senator, if I may follow up with you on the 
record on that or follow up with your staff, we can give you a 
more detailed update.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
    With that, I also have to introduce to the record from the 
American Farm Bureau Survey, this historic drought is having 
devastating consequences for farmers and ranchers, and the 
American Farm Bureau Survey--58 percent of respondents in my 
home State of Wyoming said they expect crop yields to be down 
50 percent or more due to the drought.
    And without objection, I will submit this for the record.
    [American Farm Bureau Survey follows:]

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    Senator Barrasso. Otherwise, I want to thank all of you, 
all the witnesses for joining us today, this morning. Members 
may put some questions to you in writing and they will have 
until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional 
questions for the record.
    With that, this Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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