[Senate Hearing 117-606]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                        S. Hrg. 117-606

                 THE WESTERN WATER CRISIS: CONFRONTING
                    PERSISTENT DROUGHT AND BUILDING
                 RESILIENCE ON OUR FORESTS AND FARMLAND

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



                                HEARING

                               before the

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                  CONSERVATION, CLIMATE, FORESTRY, AND  
                           NATURAL RESOURCES 

                                 of the

                       COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
                        NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              JUNE 7, 2022

                               __________

                       Printed for the use of the
           Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 
           
           
           
           
           
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                                ______ 
                                
                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
                   
50-074 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2024 




















                  
           COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY


                 DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan, Chairwoman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont            JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio                  MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado          JONI ERNST, Iowa
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
CORY BOOKER, New Jersey              CHARLES GRASSLEY, Iowa
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
                                     MIKE BRAUN, Indiana

               Joseph A. Shultz, Majority Staff Director
                    Jessica L. Williams, Chief Clerk
               Fitzhugh Elder IV, Minority Staff Director
                              ----------                              

 Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources

                 MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado, Chairman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont            ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
CORY BOOKER, New Jersey              JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississppi
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio                  TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
                                     MIKE BRAUN, Indiana 
                                     
















                                     
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                         Tuesday, June 7, 2022

                                                                   Page

Subcommittee Hearing:

The Western Water Crisis: Confronting Persistent Drought and 
  Building Resilience on our Forests and Farmland................     1

                              ----------                              

                    STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado.     1
Marshall, Hon. Roger, U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas......     3

                               WITNESSES

Mueller, Andy, General Manager, Colorado River Water Conservation 
  District, Glenwood Springs, CO.................................     7
Lewis, Earl, Chief Engineer, Kansas Department of Agriculture, 
  Division of Water Resources, Western States Water Council, 
  Manhattan, KS..................................................     9
Schultz, Courtney, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Forest and 
  Rangeland Stewardship, Warner College of Natural Resources, 
  Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO....................    11
Willis, Tom, Owner/Manager, T&O Farms, LLC, and Kansas Farmer 
  with the KSU Water Farm, Liberal, KS...........................    13
Herbert, Ellen, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Ducks Unlimited, 
  Memphis, TN....................................................    14
                              ----------                              

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:
    Mueller, Andy................................................    34
    Lewis, Earl..................................................    41
    Schultz, Courtney, Ph.D......................................    77
    Willis, Tom..................................................    90
    Herbert, Ellen, Ph.D.........................................   100

Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
Bennet, Hon. Michael F.:
    U.S. Drought Monitor, document for the Record................   106
    Colorado Association of Wheat Growers, statement for the 
      Record.....................................................   107
    Colorado Water Congress, statement for the Record............   109
    Family Farm Alliance, statement for the Record...............   112
    Reeder Creek Ranch, statement for the Record.................   134
    Trout Unlimited, statement for the Record....................   135
    The Western Landowners Alliance, statement for the Record....   139

Question and Answer:
Schultz, Courtney, Ph.D.:
    Written response to questions from Hon. Amy Klobuchar........   144
Herbert, Ellen, Ph.D.:
    Written response to questions from Hon. Amy Klobuchar........   146



 
                 THE WESTERN WATER CRISIS: CONFRONTING 
                    PERSISTENT DROUGHT AND BUILDING 
                       RESILIENCE ON OUR FORESTS 
                              AND FARMLAND

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
        Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, 
      Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and 
                                         Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., via 
Webex and in room 562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. 
Michael Bennet, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Bennet, Lujan, Marshall, Boozman, Hoeven, 
Tuberville, Thune, and Braun.

      STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL F. BENNET, U.S. SENATOR  
                 FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO 

    Senator Bennet. Good morning, everybody. I am pleased to 
call this Subcommittee meeting on Conservation, Climate, 
Forestry, and Natural Resources to order. I am grateful to 
Ranking Member Marshall for his partnership in organizing 
today's hearing on Western water resilience. I know he shares 
my concern about the unprecedented drought the West faces, 
especially as it relates to declining water levels in the 
Ogallala Aquifer.
    Our purpose this morning is simple, to sound the alarm 
about the water crisis in the American West. The West has not 
been this dry in 1,200 years. 1,200 years. If we do not get our 
act together here, it is going to not only put our western 
agriculture at risk but the American West as we know it.
    My State sits at the headwaters of the Colorado River, 
which starts as snowmelt in the Rockies before cutting across 
1,400 miles to the Sea of Cortez. The Colorado River Basin is 
the lifeblood of the American Southwest. It provides the 
drinking water for 40 million people across seven States and 30 
tribes. It irrigates five million acres of agricultural land. 
It underpins the West's $26 billion outdoor recreation and 
tourism economy, and it is running out of water. The two 
largest reservoirs in the Basin, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are 
at the lowest levels they have been since they were filled over 
50 years ago. Lake Powell has dropped more than 30 feet just in 
the last few years.
    The water crisis is not limited to the Colorado River 
Basin. The most recent data from the U.S. Drought Monitor found 
that more than 50 percent of the entire contiguous United 
States is experiencing severe drought and right now more than 
75 percent of the Western Region is seeing severe drought.
    These conditions threaten to put farmers and ranchers out 
of business, threaten the communities that rely on water to 
support their families and their livelihoods, which is every 
community in the West, and frankly, threatens our way of life 
in the West.
    Farmers like Joel Dracon, a dryland wheat farmer near 
Akron, Colorado, he told me he has had to tear up 400 acres, 
nearly a third of his land, because there was not enough water. 
He has also had to sell a tenth of his herd because there is 
not enough grass to graze his cattle.
    Paul Bruchez is a rancher in Grand County, Colorado. He 
remembers when water from the Colorado used to flow 6,000 cubic 
feet per second. Today, he said they are lucky to have 1,000 
cubic feet per second.
    Harrison Topp, a fruit grower from the North Fork Valley, 
told me has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last 
three years from drought. There is no longer even a slim margin 
for error in our production practices, he said.
    A farmer in the same county, James Henderson, said it used 
to take one hour to irrigate his soil; now it takes six hours 
because the ground is so parched.
    The main reason for all of this is climate change. Rising 
temperatures means less snowpack in the Rockies, which means 
less runoff to feed our rivers, and that means less water for 
farmers, for ranchers and communities across the West. On top 
of that, the rising temperatures mean that whatever water makes 
it into our rivers evaporates and gets absorbed into the ground 
more quickly because it is so dry.
    This is a five-alarm fire in the American West. When 
hurricanes and other natural disasters strike the East Coast or 
the Gulf States, Washington springs into action to protect 
those communities. That is what a Federal Government is 
supposed to do, to bring the full power and resources of the 
American people together to help our fellow citizens. We have 
not seen anything like that kind of response to the Western 
water crisis even though its consequences, I would argue, are 
far more wide reaching and sustained than any other natural 
disaster.
    That is just water. I have not even mentioned how climate 
change is incinerating our forests and blanketing our 
communities in smoke from wildfires. Three of the largest 
wildfires in Colorado's history were all in 2020. The day 
before New Year's Eve, the Marshall Fire destroyed over 1,000 
homes in Boulder County, Colorado, in 24 hours. It was sheer 
devastation.
    Last year, communities in my State had some of the worst 
air quality in the world because of wildfire smoke. I am sad to 
say this, but on the same day northern Utah and Colorado had 
the worst air quality in the world, worse than Beijing. That 
led Senator Romney and me to take a raft trip in Moab to talk 
about water and climate and forestry, which I deeply 
appreciated. There are days when people cannot go outside, they 
cannot open their windows, they cannot see the mountains. The 
dangerous air pollution puts Coloradans' health at risk, and it 
has left people across the West to reckon with a sobering 
possibility of a future where this is not the exception but the 
norm.
    I deeply worry that if we do not act urgently on climate 
change it will make the American West unrecognizable to our 
kids and to our grandkids. I refuse to accept that, and the 
people of my State refuse to accept that. They have a 
reasonable expectation that our national government is going to 
partner with them and help protect the American West.
    My hope is that our hearing today will help shake the 
complacency in Washington and create the momentum we need to 
act urgently. I would like to thank the witnesses who are here 
today for sharing their expertise in this area. I look forward 
to hearing about what they are seeing and experiencing on the 
ground and the ways they are trying to manage the crisis. We 
need to act now to bring immediate relief to these Western 
communities, and we simply cannot address the Western water 
crisis in any meaningful way unless we come together in a 
partnership.
    To underscore the crisis at hand, I have a map of the 
current U.S. Drought Monitor and testimony from the Colorado 
Water Congress, the Family Farm Alliance, the Colorado 
Association of Wheat Growers, Trout Unlimited, and a rancher in 
Grand County, Colorado, describing the situation we face in the 
American West. I ask unanimous consent that they be entered 
into the record. So, moved.

    [The documents can be found on pages 106-142 in the 
appendix.]

    I would like to also say thank you to Senator Boozman, the 
Ranking Member of the Agriculture Committee, for being here. It 
means a lot that you are here, especially coming from Arkansas, 
a place where they do not quite have the same drought 
conditions that we have. It is too much water, not too little.
    Let me turn it over now to my Ranking Member, the 
distinguished Senator from Kansas. Thank you, Senator Marshall.

      STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER MARSHALL, U.S. SENATOR FROM 
                     THE STATE OF KANSAS 

    Senator Marshall. Well, thank you so much and good morning, 
everybody. I want to thank our Subcommittee Chairman Bennet and 
his staff and my staff for holding today's hearing and all the 
work they have done. I want to thank all the witnesses 
sincerely for making the trip out here, taking several days out 
of your daily life as well. Again, I am honored, of course, to 
have our Ranking Member Boozman and all my colleagues here, 
Senator Tuberville, for coming as well. We appreciate that.
    It has been almost a decade since drought was a key focus 
on an Ag Committee hearing, and I am hoping we can gain some 
real insight today on how to address the challenges we are 
facing out West with regards to drought, wildfires, and 
conservation.
    Senator Bennet, the western third of Kansas, the eastern 
third of Colorado look a lot alike these days----
    Senator Bennet. They do.
    Senator Marshall [continuing]. and they always have. You 
mentioned the Colorado River, but the Arkansas River is very 
important to us. Now the ``Ar-Kansas'' River is spelled like 
``Ar-Kansaw'', but we pronounced it ``Ar-Kansas'' River as it 
goes out of Colorado through Kansas. I am not sure what the 
Okies call it.
    Senator Boozman. ``Ar-Kansaw.''
    Senator Marshall. They call it Arkansas. I thought they 
might. I have enjoyed fly fishing in the headwaters of the 
Arkansas River. The mayfly hatchery up there is incredible, but 
much of the riverbed is dry.
    Senator Bennet. My wife is from Arkansas, and her 
grandfather told me the story of coming to Colorado and having 
the Arkansas River between his legs at the headwaters. He just 
could not believe it because by the time it got to Arkansas, 
obviously, it was much, much wider than that.
    Senator Marshall. Unfortunately, through much of Kansas, it 
is literally a four-wheeler trail ride for us.
    In 1935, after surveying the aftermath of the worst dust 
storm ever recorded in North America, Robert Geiger was an 
Associated Press reporter from Washington, DC. He summed up the 
life in our region with three--the quote from him: Three little 
words achingly familiar on a western farmer's tongue, rural 
life in the Dust Bowl of the Continent, ``if it rains.'' ``If 
it rains.''
    This is not new, but it is certainly exacerbated. Even 
today, these three words dictate entire livelihoods on the high 
plains, especially in our home States of Kansas and Colorado. 
Just last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration deemed April as one of the driest months on the 
record in the last hundred years. Currently, over half of 
Kansas is designated moderate drought, and over a third of the 
State is designated as severe, again, as the Chairman commented 
already, so much of Kansas and Colorado in those extreme 
drought conditions.
    Just last week, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported that 
the projected wheat yield in Kansas is expected to drop by over 
100 million bushels. I think that is about a 30 percent of our 
average yield is going to be impacted by drought this year. 
That is a value of over a billion dollars to the State of 
Kansas.
    This lack of rain not only hurts farm production at its 
most crucial time, but it also adversely affects ranchers and 
families, who fall victim to raging wildfires, and yes, we have 
had horrible prairie fires the past several years.
    This lack of rain hurts the farm production at its most 
crucial time, but it adversely affects farmers and ranchers, 
who fall victim to raging wildfires across the Plains, 
incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars 
lost in assets and, at the worst, the lives of homes and the 
personal lives as well as genetics of cattle they will never be 
able to replace.
    Many of our friends in the private sector and our region's 
universities have been working on solutions in drought 
resiliency and fire mitigation, and I am excited to hear from 
them and hope this hearing will yield positive results for the 
future of the Western United States.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you very much, Senator Marshall. I 
appreciate that. It is nice to have a neighbor actually as the 
Ranking Member because we have a lot in common.
    Senator Boozman, do you have anything that you would like 
to add?
    Senator Boozman. No.
    Senator Bennet. Okay. I am now going to introduce the three 
witnesses that I invited to testify at today's hearing, and 
then Senator Marshall will introduce his two from the Arkansas 
River Valley. These are all leading experts in their fields 
with decades of experience in the sustainable management of our 
water from snowpack to forest, streams and wetlands. All of 
them spent years partnering with diverse groups across the West 
to manage our water resources in a way that preserves our 
economy and way of life for the next generation.
    Our first witness, Mr. Andrew Mueller, is a longtime leader 
in Western water issues with extensive policy, legal, and 
technical expertise. He currently serves as General Manager of 
the Colorado River Water Conservation District headquartered in 
Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The river district leads the 
protection, conservation, and management of the Colorado River 
for 15 western Colorado counties along with the broader use of 
the river water in my State. The Colorado River District has 
led efforts to protect critical waterflows to sustain 
agriculture and protect four endangered fish species in the 
Colorado's upper basin.
    Before leading the river district, Andy spent 23 years 
practicing law in Ridgway, Colorado, where he specialized in 
water, natural resources, and land use issues. Andy earned his 
law degree from the University of Colorado and his B.A. in 
history from Kenyon College in Ohio.
    Mr. Mueller, thank you for your leadership in our State and 
thanks for being here.
    Dr. Courtney Schultz is a leading expert at the 
intersection of forestry, social science, and policy, who has 
authored over 50 publications on U.S. forest policy issues 
along with a book on the Collaborative Forest Landscape 
Restoration Program at USDA. Dr. Schultz currently serves as a 
professor of forest and natural resource policy at Colorado 
State University in Boulder, where her research focuses on 
landscape restoration, fire management, and adapting to climate 
change on U.S. forestlands. Dr. Schultz also serves as the 
Director of the Public Lands Policy Group which produces 
research to strengthen natural resource management and policy 
related to our public lands.
    Dr. Schultz also started the CSU Climate Adaptation 
Partnership which connects scientists, resource managers, and 
policymakers to work collaboratively to help the American West 
adapt to climate change.
    Dr. Schultz holds a B.A. from Stanford and an M.S. in 
conservation biology and sustainable development from the 
University of Maryland and a Ph.D. in forestry at the 
University of Montana.
    Thank you for being here, Dr. Schultz.
    The last witness I will introduce is Dr. Ellen Herbert, a 
senior scientist at Ducks Unlimited. As members of this 
Subcommittee know well, Ducks Unlimited is a leading advocacy 
group of sportsmen and women committed to conserving America's 
wetlands. To date, the organization has conserved over 15 
million acres of waterfowl habitat, and its leadership has 
supported the protection of another 177 million acres of 
wetlands nationwide. Dr. Herbert is a member of Ducks 
Unlimited's national and international science team, where she 
evaluates the outcomes of their conservation work through field 
experimentation, numerical modeling, and data synthesis.
    Before joining Ducks Unlimited, Dr. Herbert completed field 
research on the effect of drought on sea level changes in the 
San Francisco Bay and coastal Georgia.
    Dr. Herbert earned a B.A. in biology from Kenyon College 
and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Indiana University, 
where she was also a graduate research fellow for the National 
Science Foundation.
    Dr. Herbert, Dr. Schultz, and Mr. Mueller, I cannot thank 
you enough for your leadership on these issues and for making 
the trip for today's hearing. I look forward to your testimony. 
I hope it will give our Senate colleagues a better appreciation 
for the specific, immediate, and growing danger climate change 
poses to the American West. Thank you.
    I now recognize Ranking Member Marshall who will introduce 
our next two witnesses.
    Senator Marshall. All right, Chairman Bennet. I am pleased 
to introduce two panelists today hailing from Kansas, Mr. Earl 
Lewis and Mr. Tom Willis. In full disclosure, these gentleman 
are both good friends, friends I have known for decades. They 
live, eat, and sleep conservation, and I appreciate both of 
them being here today.
    Earl Lewis is, of course, the Chief Engineer of the Kansas 
Department of Agriculture's Division of Water Resources and a 
member of the Western States Water Council. He has dedicated 
his career to water resources in Kansas. In his role, he is 
responsible for any laws in the State which are related to 
water conservation, management, and control.
    In addition to his role as Chief Engineer, Earl has served 
on the Governor's Water Vision Team, developing the long-term 
vision for the future of water supply in Kansas, and is on 
multiple councils and boards related to water policy and 
conservation.
    Now Tom Willis is a titan of agriculture. He is an 
entrepreneur, a businessman, and again, a lifelong 
conservationist before it was in vogue. He has many ventures, 
but one of them is the owner of T&O Farms just south of Garden 
City, Kansas, where he tries to grow crops on about six or 
eight inches of rain every year. Tom was the first to establish 
a water technology farm in the State of Kansas in partnership 
with the Kansas Water Office. Since 2016, Tom and his son, a 
veteran, have been studying and implementing new technologies 
such as soil moisture probes, drip irrigation, and aerial 
photography to manage irrigation methods on their operation.
    As we continue discussing solutions for water management 
and usage, I am confident that the perspectives of these two 
Kansans will provide beneficial to the Committee.
    One final shout-out. I want to shout out to Dr. Herbert and 
DU. You have been a lifelong partner for my family. You have 
been one of our choices for charitable contributions. We have 
helped establish hundreds of water habitat for ducks on our 
personal property.
    Your work has not gone unnoticed. No one does a better job 
of taking the moneys you are given and establishing habitat 
which we all get to enjoy, and we appreciate DU being here and 
represented. I think that was a great choice on your part, 
Chairman.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator. You are certainly 
right, and I appreciate that, Senator Marshall.
    Okay. To the witnesses, who actually know what they are 
talking about, we are very happy that you are here. Please try 
to keep your testimony to about five minutes each, and any 
written testimony beyond that we will certainly include in the 
record.
    Mr. Mueller, you may proceed with your testimony, and we 
will go right down the line. Thank you.

  STATEMENT OF ANDY MUELLER, GENERAL MANAGER, COLORADO 
    RIVER WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT, GLENWOOD SPRINGS, 
    COLORADO

    Mr. Mueller. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member Marshall, 
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 
speak today about the crisis that I am seeing play out before 
my eyes in western Colorado.
    My name is Andy Mueller. I am the General Manager of the 
Colorado River Water Conservation District. As a regional 
government, we lead in the conservation, development, and 
protection of the headwaters of the Colorado River in the 15 
county area in western Colorado. The precipitation in our 
district alone provides 65 percent of the Colorado River's 
annual average flow. We are at the headwaters of a river system 
that supports 40 million people, five million irrigated acres 
of agriculture, 2 countries, 30 sovereign tribal nations, and 
seven States and 11 national parks. We are the first link in an 
immense chain vital to the health and future of the single most 
important natural resource in the American Southwest.
    The Colorado River is aptly referred to as the hardest 
working river in America. Maybe the folks from Arkansas would 
disagree with us, but . . . even in wet years, the river no 
longer reaches its natural mouth of the Sea of Cortez, and 
claims to water exceed its annual average flow every year.
    The massive system of Federal reservoirs on the Colorado 
River was designed and built to accommodate the known natural 
variability in the river system and worked extremely well for 
over 50 years. However, after the longest and most severe 
drought on record, that once highly functioning Federal system 
is dangerously depleted with only 34 percent of system storage 
remaining, forcing the Department of Interior and the Basin 
States last year and this year to resort to emergency actions 
to keep the system from collapse.
    Over the last 22 years, the flows of the Colorado River 
have been 20 percent below average, and sound science tells us 
we should anticipate and plan for significant reduction in flow 
in the future. The climate we have experienced in the last 20 
years, as Senator Bennet alluded to, has been hotter and drier 
than any period in the last 1,200 years. There is a direct 
causal relationship between rising temperatures and the volume 
of water flowing in the Colorado River and its tributaries.
    Western Colorado, the most significant regional source of 
water in the Colorado River, is an epicenter for significantly 
above average rise in temperatures. Most of our 15 counties 
have experienced a more than four-degree Fahrenheit rise in 
temperatures since 1895, with greatly accelerating temperatures 
over the last decade, a very concerning trend for those of us 
in the Basin. For every one degree Fahrenheit rise in average 
temperature, we see stream flow reductions between three and 
nine percent.
    None have felt these climate impacts more than our family 
owned farms and ranches in our Colorado River District. The 
plentiful water resources of the past are no longer physically 
or legally available for many of our ag producers. Families who 
have been involved in ranching for multiple generations are 
being forced to sell their cattle and confront tremendously 
uncertain futures. This drought is threatening our local, 
regional, and national food supply.
    We cannot, nor will we, throw up our hands and surrender 
the thriving American Southwest to the forces of climate 
change. Citizens, communities, and governments throughout the 
Southwest are developing strategies, but as in the past, when 
our Nation has been confronted by existential threats, we need 
the Federal Government to be an integral partner in our 
efforts.
    We must recognize that there is no single solution which 
will allow us to escape this rapidly changing climate. It is a 
multifaceted effort, and I want to touch on a few concrete 
examples which are worthy of your consideration.
    We need additional strategically placed small reservoirs in 
our high mountain valleys. These will help us successfully 
mitigate climate change by retiming the flows, which will 
provide essential water for our streams, our communities, and 
our food supply. Federal assistance through funding tools like 
PL 566, the Watershed Act, will be essential to our effort to 
adapt and retime this water.
    We need more robust agricultural efficiency projects such 
as the Lower Gunnison Project in my district, where 
agricultural producers team up with local, regional, State, and 
Federal Government agencies to adapt to climate change. Through 
the expanded and streamlined Regional Conservation Partnership 
Program (RCPP), we can help producers and stream quality in 
many other watersheds in the American West.
    The high-mountain snowpack is the greatest reservoir in the 
Colorado River and for our water users on the western slope of 
Colorado. The 2023 Farm Bill presents opportunities to 
encourage public investment in proper forest management, 
forested natural water infrastructure, enhancing climate 
resilience of water supplies, and supporting work force 
development, and increasing the pace and scale of watershed 
restoration and adaptation.
    The multi-decadal drought and conclusive climate science 
clearly demonstrate that our demands greatly outstrip the water 
supply in the Colorado River Basin. To survive and continue to 
thrive in the Southwest, we will need to implement and all 
hands-on-deck approach, and every water user sector from the 
agriculture industry to municipal water users will have to 
meaningfully reduce their water consumption.
    If Congress is to incentivize the reduction of irrigated ag 
in the Colorado River Basin, any such program must support 
productive agriculture while focusing incentives on fallowing 
hobby farms and marginally productive lands. The Federal 
Government should not fund the retirement of productive 
agricultural lands.
    In conclusion, we are only beginning to see this climate 
crisis in the American West. We cannot afford to remain idle as 
rivers and reservoirs dry and families shutter their 
businesses. Wishing for snow and rain is no longer an adequate 
plan at any level of decisionmaking. If our communities are 
going to survive in Colorado and downstream, decisive action at 
the Federal level is needed to help us adapt to this hotter and 
drier future.
    Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mueller can be found on page 
34 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Mueller, very much 
appreciate it.
    Mr. Lewis, you are next. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF EARL LEWIS, CHIEF ENGINEER, KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF 
  AGRICULTURE, DIVISION OF WATER RESOURCES, WESTERN STATES 
  WATER COUNCIL, MANHATTAN, KANSAS

    Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 
Marshall, and members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the 
opportunity to appear before you today to talk about this very 
critical issue.
    My name is Earl Lewis. I am the Chief Engineer of the 
Kansas Department of Agriculture's Division of Water Resources 
and a member of the Western States Water Council, who I appear 
on behalf of today. The Western States Water Council is a 
member organization representing the 18 Western States, and 
members are appointed by, and advise, each of the Governors.
    As each of the people that have talked before me have 
mentioned, the situation in the West is dire. We have heard 
about the Colorado River Basin, the 40 million people, and 5 
million acres that are challenged with low water supply.
    The situation in the Great Plains is similar in the fact 
that over time we are receiving less precipitation and are 
challenged by drought. Each year, when we have less 
precipitation, that means that our farmers are pumping more 
water, exacerbating the decline of the Ogallala Aquifer. This 
is a vital resource for our region, and if we do not act we 
will end up with the situation of that resource going away as 
well as the agricultural production that is associated with 
that irrigation.
    There are three roles that I believe the Federal Government 
plays when it comes to drought: first, operation of Federal 
infrastructure, particularly with the Bureau of Reclamation and 
Corps of Engineers; second, collection, analysis, and 
distribution of data to all levels of government and individual 
producers; and third, cost share programs for producers and 
communities that help to mitigate drought and its effects.
    The collection, analysis, and open sharing of reliable data 
is important for water availability for all levels of 
government, and I would like to touch on a few of those that 
deal with the Federal Government. The National Integrated 
Drought Information System, or NIDIS, is a multi-agency 
partnership that coordinates drought monitoring, planning, and 
forecasting, including the Drought Monitor which we have talked 
about here today. The Western States Water Council supports 
NIDIS and co-chairs its executive council with USDA and NOAA. 
Senator Thune has been a champion of NIDIS and Drought Monitor 
improvements, and we thank him for his past support.
    In much of the West, winter snowpack and spring runoff 
dominate stream flow and water supply. USDA's Snow Survey and 
Water Supply Forecasting Program and SNOTEL within NRCS is 
critical for water users, managers, and planners. Program 
funding has been flat at about $9 million per year over the 
last two decades while equipment, staffing, and other costs 
have increased, challenging the program to meet staffing levels 
and to maintain an adequate network. An anticipated 50 percent 
increase in the President's 1923 budget has not been realized 
although we would encourage your consideration of this request.
    The Western States Water Council also supports robust 
programmatic funding for improved season to sub-seasonal 
precipitation forecasting, often known as S2S. It is critical 
to improve lead time for water supply planning as well as 
reservoir and agricultural operations. Pilot programs have been 
proposed to improve NOAA's 90-day precipitation forecast, but 
funding has been inadequate to date.
    Water resource managers and agricultural interests are 
reliant on evapotranspiration data or ET data for irrigation 
scheduling, management, water rights administration, and a host 
of other issues. Satellite-based ET data is already available 
in some regions, but it is not often not readily reliable for 
modeling and decisionmaking at the watershed or field scale. 
The Council supports legislative proposals for an open ET 
program that fills the urgent need for an operational system 
that can produce accurate consumptive crop water use estimates, 
such as Senate 2568 introduced by Senator Cortez Masto.
    We encourage the Subcommittee to consider USDA's role and 
resources needed to participate in building a national water 
data network as well as partnerships to advance the use of 
water information to serve the needs of agriculture. Senator 
Lujan, together with Senator Heinrich, has introduced 
legislation to establish a national water data framework. 
Western States Water Council welcomes the introduction of the 
Water Data Act and supports coordination and leverage of State 
and Federal resources.
    Finally, USDA conservation assistance programs help the 
agriculture industry thrive in good times and survive in hard 
times. The Council supports collaborative, targeted, and 
voluntary programs promoting conservation practices and 
groundwater recharge to preserve the long-term ground and 
surface water resources. Programs such as EQIP, the Regional 
Conservation Partnership Program, and the Conservation Reserve 
Enhancement Program are all programs which implement best 
management practices on the ground to lessen the need for water 
and help mitigate drought. Likewise, the USDA's Rural 
Development Agency helps rural communities plan and implement 
projects to have a reliable water supply.
    Planning for, and limiting, the impact of drought will take 
all levels of government working together, which is why I 
appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Thank you for that 
opportunity, and I will be happy to answer questions at the 
appropriate time.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis can be found on page 
41 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. We appreciate your 
being here today and thank you for your testimony.
    Dr. Schultz.

STATEMENT OF COURTNEY SCHULTZ, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR,  
  FOREST AND RANGELAND STEWARDSHIP, WARNER COLLEGE OF NATURAL 
  RESOURCES, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, FORT COLLINS, COLORADO

    Dr. Schultz. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member 
Marshall, and members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Courtney Schultz. 
I am a professor of forest and natural resource policy at 
Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I also 
lead our university's Climate Adaptation Partnership.
    In Colorado and across the country, climate change is 
leading to increased fire, smoke, flooding, and drought. In 
April of this year, USDA designated the entire State as a 
primary natural disaster area due to severe drought conditions 
that are likely to persist for years. Drought is projected to 
cost the State more than $500 million in annual agricultural 
damages by 2050, and reduced water availability will affect 
municipal and agricultural water users alike.
    Fire is also increasing in Colorado and across the West. 
Three of the State's largest wildfires in history occurred in 
2020 alone, and the State witnessed its costliest fire in State 
history in December, which is supposed to be winter, the 
Marshall Fire, which burned 6,000 acres and over 1,000 homes in 
a suburban setting last year. When fires are followed by heavy 
rains, which will only become more likely, we will see 
landslides, millions of dollars in damage to water 
infrastructure, and flashfloods that lead to the loss of life 
and property. In some places, forests are also not growing 
back, and smoke from fires is increasing with major 
implications for human health.
    These impacts fall disproportionately on low-income and 
marginalized populations in our State and beyond. As a 
headwater State for vital rivers that supply 18 other U.S. 
States and Mexico, drought and fire have impacts that extend 
well beyond our State borders.
    At CSU, our land grant university, we are undertaking 
extensive work related to climate change. We are truly at the 
forefront of research on fire, researching resilience of the 
built environment to natural disasters like fire, climate 
adaptation strategies on forest and rangelands, post-fire 
issues in Colorado and across the West with a focus on rural 
and indigenous communities, examining wildfire impacts on 
forest, snowpack, stream flow, and sediment yield, and we 
collaborate with USDA extensively on these efforts and 
appreciate the partnership with the Agency's research arms.
    Others at our university are working on climate-smart 
agriculture, soil-based climate solutions, sustainable 
livestock systems, and agrivoltaics innovation.
    We are home to the Partnership on Air Quality, Climate, and 
Health, whose members are studying smoke and, importantly, 
smoke communication to protect human health. We are also 
growing partnerships with USDA Climate Hubs related to drought 
and adaptation planning. These are core activities of our 
extension efforts at CSU.
    We are developing educational opportunities that would 
serve the existing work force, train new graduate students, and 
train and recruit youth into these fields.
    I want to highlight a few potential areas for future 
attention and investment. We see potential for augmenting 
funding for climate adaptation research and possibly for more 
land grant-USDA Climate Hub partnerships, perhaps with 
multiyear funding to support partnerships for agriculture and 
forest resilience. There also may be value in exploring 
authorizing the Climate Hubs. A recent five-year review of the 
hubs indicated that there is significant demand for their work 
and a lot of areas for growth.
    For forest and fire management, which is my area of 
expertise, the situation will only get worse, and it is far 
more expensive to respond reactively than it is to work 
proactively. Thinning and reintroducing beneficial fire in 
forest can reduce fire hazard near communities. It can give 
firefighters greater opportunities to engage fire as it moves 
toward the interface where people live and can serve to reduce 
fire intensity which can protect the forest ecosystem for the 
benefits it provides, including water provisioning and carbon 
storage.
    At the same time, the best way to protect communities is to 
work on defensible space and fuel reduction right around homes 
because embers can come from miles away and most ignitions are 
actually human-started on private land. If we are trying to 
protect communities, work needs to be done across jurisdictions 
with strong community-based partner engagement.
    Partners have noticed that forest management in high 
priority areas would require a 40 to 60-billion-dollar 
investment across jurisdictions in the next 10 years and must 
rely on Federal, State, tribal, NGO, and private partnerships 
to accelerate action. We got partway there in the 
Infrastructure Bill, and I would encourage you to continue 
seeking the necessary funding, with a few recommendations.
    Partners are seeking greater involvement, transparency, and 
accountability for how these funds are being spent to ensure 
they are going to the intended purpose, being placed 
strategically, utilizing community-based partnerships, 
promoting carbon storage, and going to areas that have been 
historically underserved.
    I would recommend a clear plan specifically for the funding 
in the Infrastructure Bill that is dedicated to prescribed 
fire, which is an essential forest management tool, and a 
transparent discussion of how to deploy funds where they are 
needed most given current work force shortages and limited 
industry capacity to do restoration work.
    I would also be happy to work with you on how future 
investments can be guided through improved performance measures 
that focus on outcomes, such as more emphasis on the acres 
mitigated target, with strong external oversight and 
engagement.
    In light of the impacts of a changing climate, the 
challenge of managing our connected forests, watersheds, and 
farmlands is monumental in Colorado and across the West. My 
colleagues and I are ready to assist in this endeavor and 
greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss these issues with 
the Committee today. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Schultz can be found on page 
77 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Dr. Schultz, and we will take 
you up on your offer of assistance.
    Mr. Willis, thank you for being here, and the floor is 
yours.

STATEMENT OF TOM WILLIS, OWNER/MANAGER, T&O FARMS, LLC, AND  
  KANSAS FARMER WITH THE KSU WATER FARM, LIBERAL, KANSAS

    Mr. Willis. Well, thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking 
Member Marshall, and members of the Subcommittee, for giving me 
the opportunity to speak today. My name is Tom Willis. Senator 
Marshall, we are not in Kansas anymore.
    You guys can read my testimony. There is three or four 
points that I would like to make in the allotted time that I 
have got.
    No. 1, this drought is real. Easiest way I can signify 
that, we have not had natural precipitation on my farm, my farm 
in four counties in western Kansas, since last year. This 
morning, at three in the morning, I got a call from my wife. 
Usually when that happens, it means they have got cows out on 
the highway and my cowboy is drunk somewhere. That is not why 
she called. She called to tell me it was raining. We got an 
inch or two last night. That is the first rain we have had 
since last August.
    No. 2, when that happens in our area, because of the 
harshness of the climate, we pull heavy on the aquifer. When I 
first bought my farm--we farm--my son and I farm about 7,500 
irrigated acres in Kansas, southwest Kansas. When I first 
bought it, after the first year, my pulldown on my average well 
from that farm was 10 feet. That is 10 feet of water that we 
used out of the aquifer that was not replenished, and I could 
see that that was not sustainable.
    Working with the State, we developed one of the first water 
tech farms, and in that was to say how can we be profitable and 
still conserve water. Working with the State, we put in--
changed nozzle packages on our sprinklers. We redid our 
sprinklers. We put moisture probes in because the average 
farmer will look at his--you know, everything he sees is above 
ground. By using moisture probes, we were able to go down as 
far as five feet and say: Really, what does the water look like 
down there? How much water does it actually need?
    We also used telemetry. Telemetry allows me to look at the 
well when it is running, and if I get tempted to turn it up a 
little faster I can actually see what it does to the aquifer in 
that particular well, and most of the time it is enough to make 
you kind of slow it back down. That has been helpful.
    We have used remotes on all of our circles. Why is that 
important? In the past, when a pivot broke down, you might not 
know about it for four, five, six hours. It would stand in one 
place and sprinkle the same place. We are able to know 
instantaneously, and my sons and our hired men are really good 
at fixing or turning sprinklers off at three in the morning so 
that we do not waste water.
    We changed our crop rotation. When I got there, it was 
corn-soybeans, soybeans-corn. We have implemented sorghum. As a 
disclaimer, I am on the National Sorghum Producers, but I will 
tell you that sorghum is the resource-conserving crop and it is 
suited very well for southwest Kansas. It is hardy, and it can 
be made to be profitable because that was our goal.
    All of that combined, I guess to get right to the bottom 
line on it, we saved--in six years, we have saved 8,887 acre 
feet or, to put that in terms of gallons, that is 1.2 billion 
gallons of water that we have saved by changing rotation, by 
using the technologies that are out there. That is real water, 
and that will be there for my son, for my grandson, and for the 
way of life that we chose to live, so very happy with that.
    I do use--utilize State programs. I get asked sometimes, 
why don't you use the Federal programs? The reality of it is 
this. The State is simple. They will cost share a water program 
with me. They will cost share a meter with me. They will cost 
share telemetry with me. Depending on what the year brings, I 
can be very flexible.
    Unfortunately, with the Federal programs, they mean well, 
but the flexibility is not there. I cannot afford that. Given 
the ever-changing climate and what I have to deal with from an 
environment perspective, I have to have maximum flexibility.
    One of the asks that I would have is that we construct this 
new Farm Bill. If we put anything in there, remember one size 
does not fit all and the key to getting farmer adaptation to 
all this is flexibility.
    The other thing you have to look at is risk. In today's 
margins, farm margins, with input costs where they are, it is 
hard to get a farmer to think outside what his work--he does 
not want to lose his farmer. Incentivizing that change would be 
good.
    Anyway, I am out of time, but I appreciate you listening to 
me. I want to tell you this: This problem is real. It cannot be 
kicked down the road. It cannot be kicked down the road, at 
least in western Kansas.
    I look forward to answering any questions that you might 
have, and again, thank you for letting me be there.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Willis can be found on page 
90 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Willis. I would say that if 
there were Colorado producers here they would be talking about 
their children and grandchildren as well, so appreciate your 
focus there.
    Dr. Herbert, you have the last word, and then we will go to 
questions.

     STATEMENT OF ELLEN HERBERT, PH.D., SENIOR SCIENTIST, 
           DUCKS UNLIMITED, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE 

    Dr. Herbert. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of 
the Subcommittee, thank you for having me today. I am Dr. Ellen 
Herbert, Senior Scientist for Ducks Unlimited, North America's 
leader in voluntary incentive-based wetland and grass 
conservation. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on 
behalf of Ducks Unlimited regarding the western water crisis. 
Water is at the center of what we do as an organization.
    Western States have lost between 20 and 90 percent of their 
original wetlands through direct drainage and conversion of 
wetlands. Others have been lost through the diversion of source 
water for other uses. It will come to no surprise that drought 
is further exacerbating wetland loss. This has a profound 
effect on water birds and other wetland-dependent wildlife as 
well as the important ecological functions wetlands provide to 
people by capturing floodwater, augmenting river flows, 
recharging deep aquifers, and regulating climate.
    The drought situation is dire. However, when I can, I want 
to offer solutions on the role of Farm Bill programs and other 
programs like the National Wetlands Conservation Act. Wetland 
restoration in States like Colorado and Kansas can be part of 
the drought mitigation solution.
    We have heard from other witnesses about flow retiming. 
Wetlands with subsurface connectivity tend to regulate 
hydrology by capturing water during snowmelt or flood periods 
and direct that water through shallow subsurface flows, 
providing a constant subsurface discharge through streams and 
rivers during drought periods.
    DU and other multiple partners in public and private 
entities deliver the South Platte River wetland augmentation 
wetlands in Colorado to direct water to wetland ponds during 
high flows, snowmelt periods, where it slowly infiltrates into 
the alluvial aquifer and returns to the river over time. These 
projects offset agricultural well depletion, supplement base 
flow during dry periods, and provide habitat for waterfowl, 
wading birds, cranes, and other threatened and endangered 
species.
    Wetlands can also play a role in recharging deep aquifers. 
DU works with USDA through the SAFE program and other partners 
in the Southern High Plains to restore playa wetlands. As the 
Ranking Member knows too well, the Ogallala Aquifer is being 
depleted at an alarming rate, but scientists estimate that 
aquifer recharge rates in playa wetlands are 10 to 1,000 times 
higher than recharge rates in upland systems and playa wetlands 
contribute up to 95 percent of the aquifer recharge. By 
restoring functional playas, we can improve water security for 
future generations and provide important migratory bird 
habitat.
    These playas, among other CRP wetlands, are also the 
subject of a newly funded USDA project led by DU and partners 
from USGS, ARS, and six State and tribal universities, 
examining the climate mitigation potential of the CRP program. 
Previous research indicates these wetlands and surrounding 
grasslands are important carbon reservoirs.
    Water efficiency is another important component of drought 
resilience, especially in arid western States, where it can be 
difficult to supply enough water to support a significant human 
population, globally important agriculture industry, and vital 
habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife. The Klamath Basin 
Irrigation Project, for instance, supports tens of thousands of 
wetland acres and hundreds of thousands of acres of cropland, 
requiring 440,000 acre-feet of water annually. This year, it is 
slated to receive only 50,000 acres of 11 percent of that 
demand. Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, 
once the most important waterfowl refuges in North America, 
will receive no water and be completely dry.
    In a typical winter, the Central Valley of California hosts 
between six and eight million ducks and geese, which rely on 
wetlands and winter-flooded rice. This year, rice planting will 
be around half of what it normally is. Rice is an important 
commodity and provides more than half of all waterfowl food in 
the Central Valley. The rest of the wetlands of the Central 
Valley of California are slated to get 20 percent or less than 
normal water supplies.
    While there is no single solution, other than increased 
snowpack and more rain, which is becoming increasingly unlikely 
with changing weather patterns and warmer winters, we can 
implement more water-efficient practices better use what we 
have. To meet water demands in California, water is delivered 
to users through an elaborate system of water storage and 
conveyance infrastructure, but these systems are often 
inefficient. Working with multiple partners on two projects, 
Gray Lodge and the Llano Seco water supply, DU is pursuing 
design and construction projects to replace leaking and 
inefficient siphons and canals. These projects will create 
nearly 47,000 acre-feet of new and improved water conveyance 
capacity and provide reliable water delivery to 29,000 acres of 
agricultural land and 9,000 acres of wetland.
    As drought continues to worsen, we want to ensure our 
policies are maximizing water resilience, water reuse, and 
water efficiency to minimize conflict between water users. 
Working with public and private partners, including in the 
USDA, Ducks Unlimited will continue to advocate and implement 
multi-benefit water projects to maintain vital habitat and 
support human use.
    Thank you and I would be more than happy to answer any 
questions you may have.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Herbert can be found on page 
100 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Dr. Herbert. I would like to 
thank all of the witnesses for your substantive and sober 
testimony.
    We are now going to turn to a round of five-minute 
questions for each of us. Mr. Mueller, assuming we move forward 
as we are now, with no changes to our water use and no 
meaningful action to slow climate change, can you describe what 
you think the Colorado River Basin will look like in 20 years 
or 40 years? Could you also give the Committee a little bit of 
a sense about what is happening in Lake Powell and Lake Mead as 
well?
    Mr. Mueller. Absolutely. Thank you, Senator. I would say 20 
or 30 years from now the Colorado River Basin will be a starkly 
different place if we do not act quickly and act intelligently. 
All of the scientific consensus is clear that we will--are 
facing a situation where we can expect additional cuts to the 
flow of the Colorado River as great as 30 percent, so a 50 
percent reduction from 20 years ago.
    This is river system that, again, is already over 
appropriated and over used. What that means it that we will 
have great conflict between our growing cities and the river 
basin and our national food supply. It means that the price and 
value of water will exceed the current value of agricultural 
production water and it is likely that our agriculture in the 
Colorado River Basin will be greatly diminished.
    It is a situation that is dire, frankly. You know, I talk 
about our family farms and ranches in western Colorado, but the 
reality is our farmers throughout the Colorado River Basin feed 
America. You look to the Lower Basin, any of us who have 
enjoyed a salad in the winter, it is coming from Yuma, Arizona, 
or in the Imperial Irrigation District it is watered with 
Colorado River water. We simply cannot see that disappear over 
the next 30 years.
    Today, that massive system of reservoirs that I referred to 
has the two largest. It is Lake Mead at Hoover Dam and Lake 
Powell with the Glen Canyon Dam. You may have read in the paper 
that the States and the Department of Interior, very 
cooperatively this year, enacted some extremely shocking 
emergency actions and did so in the space of about two weeks of 
dialog. We are talking about a water bureaucracy that moves at 
the pace of melting glaciers 200 years ago, not in today's 
pace.
    They came together because the reality is that Lake Powell 
was predicted to drop below minimum power production at the 
lake. That is bad enough because the western United States 
depends on that cheap power coming out of the crisp reservoirs, 
but it is even worse when you look at the infrastructure issue 
associated with that. That leaves us with two outlets out of 
Glen Canyon Dam.
    The concern at the Bureau of Reclamation was that those two 
river bypass outlets would actually cavitate like they did in 
the 1980's and erode the concrete tunnels that pass that water 
because they appear not to be functioning as they were designed 
in the early 1960's.
    The concern was that we would not be able to pass water to 
the Lower Basin at all, no water in the Grand Canyon, no water 
for California, no water for Nevada, and that is a stark 
warning to all of us. We were within months of hitting that 
level in Lake Powell. We moved water around, did not release as 
much out of Glen Canyon down through the Grand Canyon this 
year, about half a million acre-feet, and we also moved another 
half a million acre-feet from Flaming Gorge Reservoir up in 
Wyoming and Utah down into Lake Powell.
    These are one-time fixes. These are one moment in time. We 
do not have any more of those IV bags, as I call them, or Upper 
Basin reservoirs.
    You know, the three reservoirs that sit--that the Federal 
Government controls, that sit above Lake Powell are 
approximately 23, 27, and somewhere around 50 percent full, 
respectively. They are stark and empty.
    This year, snowpack, as we sit here today, has melted a 
full month earlier than the average runoff. Our runoff peaked 
at about 60 percent of average runoff. As I referenced in my 
written testimony, last year, we had about an 89 percent 
snowpack in the Colorado River Basin, pretty good, close to 
average. Well, the inflow into Lake Powell, where it really 
matters, was less than 37 percent. So the change in the heat is 
just killing this river.
    I would just say that we need to act. We need to act in a 
way that supports our agricultural community, and I think that 
the Federal Government and through the Department of 
Agriculture has a tremendous ability to do that with our 
producers hand in hand.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Mueller.
    I am going to reserve my other questions till my colleagues 
have a chance to ask theirs. Senator Marshall?
    Senator Marshall. I am going to give my time to Senator 
Tuberville, and I will come back.
    Senator Bennet. Great.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you very much. Thanks for being 
here today. Very interesting. I am from Alabama. We got a lot 
of water. We do not have this problem, but I have spent a lot 
of time out West, a big hunter, duck hunter. I understand your 
problem, and it is a huge problem. I have been on Lake Powell 
several times. What a mess.
    My question is: We know we got a problem. Why do we have a 
problem? I mean, we got to figure out the problem before we get 
a solution. Is it Governors? Is it we are sending too much 
water to the cities? I know Dallas and Fort Worth are draining 
the aquifer in north Texas. They are sending millions of 
gallons a day.
    Why? Why are we in this situation? Who wants to take it 
first? Mr. Mueller, you can start. Anybody else want to answer 
this?
    Why do we have this problem? I hear climate change. I am 
fine with climate change. Why? How do we stop this?
    Mr. Lewis. I might take the first crack at that. I would 
say, two-fold. First, the majority of the western States fall 
under what is called the Prior Appropriation Doctrine, and 
individual water rights are private property rights dedicated 
and owned by the owner of the property. A lot of times, that 
development happened clear back in the 1800's and certainly by 
1970, 1980. We really did not have adequate data at that point 
to have a good handle on what the situation was going to be. So 
that is part of it, just lack of understanding at the time we 
were allocating the water supply and water rights.
    The second is that as we think about it from the standpoint 
of making those decisions we are using the best available data 
that is available to us at that point. Our history, you have 
heard the Chairman talk about the fact that the West is as dry 
as it has been for 1,200 years. Well, we do not have 1,200 
years' worth of record to make decisions on. At that point, we 
had 50 to maybe 100 years of record.
    I think if we look at the overall history of the record we 
allocated a lot of that water supply during a fairly wet 
period, and so we consequently, in a lot of cases, over 
allocated the resource and did that in a private property 
rights situation. We certainly want to respect those private 
property rights, but it puts us in a situation of how do we 
manage a more limited situation than we thought we had at the 
time those water rights were issued.
    I think, you know, it has been pointed out that the 
question of is it urban versus ag--I think we are all in this 
together. Whether it is ag or urban, industry, environment----
    Senator Tuberville. It is going to take both.
    Mr. Lewis. It is going to take all of us working together 
to resolve this.
    Senator Tuberville. Yes. We have this problem, and you look 
at it, and you say, you know, the climate is changing, which it 
obviously moves back and forth. You know, is it because we are 
concentrating more people in one area, that they are stopping 
the water from coming down south? He is the end of the food 
chain here in South Arizona.
    We have got to figure out the problem. We cannot just throw 
money at something that is not going to help.
    Anybody else want to answer this? I mean, where do we 
start?
    Senator Bennet. I will give you a little more time because 
I think this is such a fundamentally important question, 
Senator Tuberville.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Dr. Schultz, did you want to 
take a crack?
    Dr. Schultz. Yes, thank you. Thanks for the question, 
Senator Tuberville. I can mostly speak to the research on 
forest fires. That is my area of expertise. I can say that we 
are seeing a lot of data that indicates because of 
anthropogenic climate change, human-caused climate change, we 
are seeing significant increases in temperatures, which is 
leading to rain that is not falling as snow anymore. We have 
different timing of flows, water that is evaporating. We are 
looking at potential low- to no-snow futures in just a few----
    Senator Tuberville. Why is it doing that, though? Why are 
we having----
    Dr. Schultz. Because it is getting hotter, primarily, and 
then we are having changes in precipitation patterns. For 
example, there is these predictions that we will see much more 
intensive flooding after fires because these atmospheric rivers 
will come in and we will have more extreme rainfall in the 
summertime than we have ever seen before. It is the increased 
temperature is leading to changes in how and when water is 
coming and then changes in precipitation patterns.
    If we look at patterns for forest fires, you know, for a 
while we were talking about the fact that past fire suppression 
in our fire-prone forest was a big reason we were seeing more 
fires, but now we are seeing that climate change effects--and 
this is when I talk to my, you know, fire scientist colleagues, 
they are saying climate change and increased heat is leading to 
higher temperatures, different relative humidity wind speeds, 
and increased fire behavior in ways that we have never seen 
before. A paper just came out that said there were three times 
the amount of fires in our high-elevation forest than ever has 
been seen on the record.
    I think, to a large extent, we can think about how we can 
adapt to climate change, you know, how do we live it, what do 
we do for our forest in the meantime, but fundamentally, we 
have to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change. That 
is ultimately where the solution lies.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator Tuberville.
    Senator Marshall.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you again. I think I will start 
with Mr. Lewis on the same topic of managing flood events. I 
think, you know, it sure seems like we are having more flood 
events. How can we manage that water from rivers that are 
flooding and store them better? We have talked about this in 
Kansas for decades. How do we take advantage of that situation? 
Any thoughts?
    Mr. Lewis. Well, I think as we look at the situation, at 
least in our part of the world, the Central United States, what 
the forecasts or the long-term models would say is that we will 
get roughly the same amount of precipitation and more intensive 
events and maybe more time in between the events. Really, what 
that means, if you are going to manage the water, we kind of 
have to go back to where we were at maybe in the middle part of 
the last century with storage. As was just mentioned, we may 
see much more intense rainfall, and that can lead to more 
flooding if we do not have the infrastructure in order to 
capture that and then ideally put that to use once the flood 
passes us.
    Senator Marshall. Have you seen anybody being successful at 
this? You know, it seems like the Corps just wants to build 
dikes higher and higher, and I keep thinking about natural 
spillways and ways to manage those floodwaters.
    Mr. Lewis. You know, there are a few examples certainly as 
we see more and more demand primarily from our cities and urban 
centers for water we are seeing certainly in Texas and 
California. In north Texas, there was recently a reservoir that 
was permitted as being built, called Lower Bois d'Arc, which is 
about 13,000 surface acres. That is probably the largest 
reservoir of its kind being built in the United States at this 
point. That had to be done by the local water supply district. 
The Federal Government and most of the State governments are 
not really in the business of building storage and managing 
that type of infrastructure at this point.
    Senator Marshall. Okay. My next question is kind of a 
generic one that we will see if we have time for everybody to 
answer. I want to know what is in the Federal Government 
programs--Tom, I will come to you first. What is working for 
water conservation? What is not working? How would you improve 
water conservation if you were king? If you were writing the 
next Farm Bill, what would that look like to give you more 
flexibility?
    Mr. Willis. First of all, yes, flexibility is the key to 
it, maybe shorter-term type programs. The key to getting, in my 
opinion, in production agriculture is to be able to incentivize 
the producer to try new technologies without feeling like he is 
going to lose his farm if things do not work because we are an 
aging population in production agriculture. That willingness to 
step out of the box and say, hey, I am going to switch the way 
that I am doing things, that is hard. That can be a very hard 
decision, especially again with overall farm income, net farm 
income projected to be down.
    What would I do with them? I think I would mirror a little 
bit what we do in Kansas, where we say, hey. You know, I go to 
them. I would like to put in some probes. I would like to do 
this. There are some incentives for me to try that.
    Then they do not tell me what I have to do from there. They 
look at the results. I tell them what I want to do.
    In my case, I said I will reduce the use, my water usage, 
by 50 percent.
    Senator Marshall. Okay.
    Mr. Willis. We were able to do that, and we were able to 
hold that income at the same level. I think that would be my 
one suggestion.
    Senator Marshall. Mr. Lewis, kind of expand upon that. What 
have you seen working from the Federal Government? Obviously, 
the States are giving them some flexibility. If you were to 
help us direct the next Farm Bill dollars, what can we do to 
give you more flexibility or to make this work for your people, 
our people?
    Mr. Lewis. Well, I think Mr. Willis hit it pretty well, 
frankly. You know, much of the programs that are dedicated to 
this type of activity really were not built for irrigation 
efficiency or water management. They were primarily built 
coming out of the 30's and the 50's with dust bowls, and they 
were focused on soil conservation and those kinds of things, 
very laudable goals and very important activity.
    It is really difficult to then take those same programs and 
then apply them to the type of things that Tom just talked 
about. I think some more focus on irrigation technology, on 
water management, maybe dedicating some of the resource and 
some of the programs toward that would be helpful in trying to 
move us in the right direction from the Federal side.
    Mr. Mueller. Yes, if I could just add, Senator Marshall, I 
appreciate that question. I would say there are a couple things 
real quickly.
    In our district, we deal with both the NRCS and the Bureau 
of Reclamation in the Far West, and the problem we have is that 
the two agencies have completely different NEPA compliance 
processes. We have projects where we combine the money from the 
two agencies together with State and local money and we end up 
spending years doing extra NEPA compliance because we end up 
having to comply with the Bureau of Policies and then the NRCS 
policies.
    We would love to see a Farm Bill that directs the NRCS to 
be able to use the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation NEPA compliance 
program and policies. If we do that first, we can move forward 
with both agencies. It would be tremendously helpful.
    The only other thing I would say is that we are looking at 
these huge increases in prices on piping in particular. It is 
one of our most--best way to increase water efficiency and 
water conservation on off-farm delivery. The process that the 
NRCS uses through EQIP oftentimes combines both the design and 
the construction in one contract, and so we--by the time we get 
the design approved, we get the contract approved, the 
construction prices have escalated recently as much as 100 
percent and the original contract price cannot cover the on-
farm and off-farm delivery systems.
    We would ask that you consider supporting and 
reestablishing the Index Payment Rate program within the NRCS 
and authorizing the NRCS to break those two phases of 
contracting up so that when we finally contract for 
construction it is a realistic number and not one that is 
futile. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator Marshall. Thank you for 
that testimony.
    Senator Lujan is actually next in order, but he has kindly 
offered to let Senator Braun go first since you were here--and 
thank you for coming.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually live on a 
farm and have practiced conservation my entire life, watched 
with horror sometimes when I see what is happening especially 
in the Far West to where it looks like--agriculture is a long-
term enterprise, and your main asset is your land and your 
water table. When that starts going the wrong direction, I do 
not know how you strategically make the decisions on what you 
are going to do long-term. Most other businesses do not have 
that dynamic in play.
    I would like Mr. Mueller and Mr. Lewis to give me an idea. 
Especially in maybe the Near West, are you in as bad a shape or 
impending as what we see through places like California, where 
I do not know how owning a farm there would look like you could 
say that is a long-term enterprise, you know, when you 
literally could run out of water? How far east is that 
situation for all of us to be concerned about in terms of what 
the future holds?
    Mr. Mueller. Well, Senator Braun, maybe I can take that, 
and then we can move further east to Kansas. I would tell you 
that our farmers in the high mountains of Colorado, our 
ranchers and farmers, deal with drought and they are used to 
dealing with drought on a fairly regular basis. Many of our 
ditches are direct-supply ditches. We do not have the benefit 
of groundwater in our area. We are very heavily reliant on 
surface water, snow runoff.
    Our farmers understand, and our ranchers understand, that 
when they look up at the mountains and they see a dry year they 
are used to saying, well, that back 40 that is not as 
productive, I am going to fallow it. I am going to not irrigate 
that so that I can get the maximum bang out of my most 
productive fertile soils.
    I think that is what we have seen over the last 22 years of 
this severe drought in Colorado. I would say that we are just 
as bad off as California. We just maybe do not have as many 
people demanding it, but we are incredibly dry.
    I think that developing a program where we assist farmers 
on a programmatic scale to remove that marginal ag. I would 
also say, you know, we have an awful lot of people who have 
moved into Colorado, just as in California, and getting some of 
our what my real agricultural constituents would call hobby 
farmers, getting them to dry up their views in favor of food 
production, with a little Federal incentive, would truly help 
us. Targeting those two areas in voluntary conservation 
programs would be tremendously helpful.
    Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Senator, for that question, and I 
would say that this probably runs right through the middle of 
Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas, clear up to North Dakota. We 
often talk from a water standpoint about, at least in Kansas, 
of being two States, from a very semi-arid in the western part 
of the State, groundwater dominated, to much more rainfall, up 
to 45 inches, in the eastern part of our State.
    Senator Braun. How much in the eastern part?
    Mr. Lewis. Up to 45 inches. We are at about 15 or 16 in the 
southwest portion and about 45, so about 3 times difference.
    Senator Braun. That is about Indiana rainfall then.
    Mr. Lewis. That is right. The western third of our State, 
we are really in a water mining situation at this point. We 
have groundwater development declines. It is like any real 
estate; it is about location. We have got some areas that are 
effectively leaking water. We have got other areas that are 25 
or 50 years left. We have got areas close to the Oklahoma 
border that may have 200 years left. I think that making sure 
that we tailor whatever action we take to that individual area, 
that individual producer, is key to our long term success.
    One thing that has not been hit on yet that I think is key 
is--and Mr. Willis talked about it just briefly--crop varieties 
and crop genetics. We are seeing even in the western part of 
our State, because of drought-tolerant crops, people that can 
be successful certainly in a normal year, where 25, 50 years 
ago that was not the case on a dryland situation. I think 
additional research dedicated to crop genetics that are more 
suited to the High Plains would certainly make sure that we can 
keep those farmers viable for the long term.
    Senator Braun. Thank you. Dr. Schultz, I have been a tree 
farmer since the late 1980's, and all I can tell you is it is 
great therapy for this current job. I go back to it every 
weekend.
    Forest ground has a little different dynamic. It has a 
longer horizon. The biggest thing I deal with would be invasive 
species, and we have got one called stiltgrass that once it 
gets into your woods you do not even know that it is not native 
and you do a poor harvest and it has gone from your skid trails 
into enveloping the entire woods and you cannot even get a 
seedling that will break through. I know that you have got 
similar stuff in the West, cheatgrass, other stuff that you 
contend with. How big a deal is that, and how much has that 
become a problem in the recent past?
    Dr. Schultz. Thank you, Senator Braun, for the question. My 
understanding--and I will just caveat to say that that is a 
little bit outside of my expertise, but my understanding is 
that there will be insect and disease outbreaks in our forests 
in the West and they will have a variety of effects. Sometimes 
it will mean that you will get two cycles of insects in a year 
because it is warmer instead of one or you will have situations 
where because you do not get a hard freeze the larvae do not 
die, so that will exacerbate it.
    I think part of what happened when we saw a massive die-off 
in California a few years ago was that there was an insect 
outbreak and it weakened the trees and stressed them, and then 
in addition to the drought and heat conditions it caused, you 
know, a huge mortality event, and then that can interact with 
fire in some tricky ways as well.
    Senator Braun. Very good. I think whenever something 
becomes weak or the climate is not in sync you now have that 
issue, less for row crop farming but a big deal for forest 
management.
    Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator Braun. I really 
appreciate those questions. We have had terrible beetle kill in 
Colorado, and it is happening at the headwaters. When the 
forest dies, this severely affects our water infrastructure for 
the Rocky Mountain West. I really appreciate your line of 
questioning.
    Senator Lujan, my neighbor, is here, and I think you are 
going to go next and then Senator Hoeven. In your absence, Mr. 
Lewis, from Kansas, mentioned his support of your bill with 
Senator Heinrich, the Water Data Act. I just want you to know 
you were mentioned while you were not here.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 
Mr. Bennet, for holding this hearing with you and Mr. Marshall 
as well.
    Mr. Lewis, that is encouraging that you are supportive of 
that effort. We have an incredible U.S. House Member by the 
name of Melanie Stansbury. She used to work over here in the 
Senate, and the good people of New Mexico saw that expertise, 
and now she is in the House. She really was the brain trust 
behind some of this with the work she did on similar issues in 
the Senate. I appreciate that.
    Across the West--I am glad to hear across the country right 
now there is more and more attention to the drought conditions 
that we are all experiencing.
    I, myself, I am fourth-generation on a small farm. Now some 
people may refer to what we do on a few acres as hobby farming. 
To us, it is self-sustenance. You know. We eat what comes out 
of that ground, so do animals. Whether it is sheep or cattle or 
others that may be grazing on hay or that alfalfa that we are 
baling, it is all important as well and as we are looking at 
those impacts.
    Dr. Schultz, in New Mexico, like in Colorado--and I think 
Mr. Mueller mentioned this as well--our water comes from those 
watersheds, from snowmelt, and from accumulation, like so then 
Colorado and New Mexico, they are all irrigation ditchways. 
People may chuckle at what we do, but centuries ago our 
ancestors saw right to dig three feet across, three feet down, 
and then they put these headgates. We call them comportas. It 
is a Spanish name for a door, but headgate. Then we managed the 
waterflow.
    In good years, everyone has more crop production, and in 
bad years, everyone is fighting. You always have to walk up 
that ditch, and oftentimes it is with a shovel in your hand 
because you go look to see who took your water and you have 
words with one another. Then the water gets flowing again, so 
it is always positive that way.
    Whether it is centuries old or we look at irrigation 
structures that have been constructed in conjunction with 
United States of America, within USDA, private entities that 
have taken these over and doing that work, it is also 
important.
    Last week, I was visiting some areas of New Mexico where we 
have the largest fire on record now. It was started by a 
prescribed burn by the Forest Service within the USDA.
    Nonetheless, I am very concerned about what dry conditions 
mean and lower water yields on the front end and what that 
sometimes can lead to with beetles and other invasive species.
    I am much more concerned, at least during this time in New 
Mexico, with what good water is going to mean for us. Good 
water is going to mean bad water conditions because that fire 
burned so hot. We have got ash 6 to 12 inches deep. We have got 
trees that are going to come down. They are going to clog up 
the rivers. That ash is going to go into waterways and 
culverts. Some of these towns that 90 percent of the water that 
is for drinking water in these communities, they are not going 
to be able to touch it.
    Dr. Schultz, can you touch on that a little bit as well, 
with you know, fire and water, good conditions before or bad 
conditions, what that means, too, and then on the back end, 
what that could yield to and how we need to be thoughtful about 
conditions before and conditions after, what could be caused 
with a fire?
    Dr. Schultz. Thank you, Senator Lujan, for that question. I 
am certainly very cognizant of the intense fires you are facing 
in your State right now. You know, my heart goes out to your 
State and people who are dealing with that, and it is going to 
be an issue for a long time to come.
    I mean, I live at the--in the footprint of the Cameron Peak 
Fire, which I think was the largest fire in State history in 
Colorado, and it has had an enormous impact on our watershed. I 
have watched that myself because the ash and waterflows are 
very obviously impacted post-fire.
    I think one of the things we should think about is how we 
can improve our post-fire recovery funding and strategies, and 
I think that would be an area for emphasis for the Farm Bill. 
Something that we are going to be working on this summer is 
trying to understand specifically what people are needing and 
where they are running into challenges so we can help inform 
this Committee on those issues.
    The other thing that I understand is that a lot of 
communities do not have backup water supplies, and so sometimes 
they have to--we have seen some communities where they switch 
to a backup water supply, but other communities are not going 
to have that option, and they are just one fire away from 
having their water supply essentially shut down.
    We have also seen tremendous impacts to water 
infrastructure. For example, I think after the Hayman Fire in 
Colorado estimates were that the impacts to water supplies for 
cities around Denver were over $30 million because of those 
sediment flows into the water infrastructure. There is the 
impacts of the debris actually into the system, the toxicity of 
the water, then the impacts to the infrastructure itself, which 
can be hugely important to clean up.
    I think that all leads to the need to do more to limit 
these kinds of catastrophic fires and also just recognize that 
they are going to be a bigger part of our future and we are 
going to have to figure out how to, you know, have some 
nimbleness with our water infrastructure, with our water 
supply, and also have more focus on our post-fire recovery for 
communities.
    Senator Lujan. Appreciate that, Dr. Schultz.
    Mr. Chairman, since my time is out, there are two other 
issues that I wanted to raise, but it is more to get the 
attention of the Committee staff as well as we are all working 
in these areas as well.
    It carries off from what Mr. Braun was talking about with 
the invasive species, with plants and weeds and things of that 
nature. In New Mexico and in southern Colorado, it is saltcedar 
in our waterways, and then we have these elms that if we could 
just figure out how to get fruit growing out of them we would 
solve a lot of challenges. These things spout up like crazy, 
and they drink a ton of water. Especially these smaller 
communities, they do not have the financial means to take those 
things down. It gets expensive. To the extent that as we are 
looking at conservation and drought mitigation that we try to 
plus that up and that we look at smaller areas maybe where 
those local governments do not have the means to be able to get 
that done.
    Then the last thing that I will say on conservation is, 
well, we need to be doing more in these specific areas, with 
some of these earth and waterways, like Mr. Mueller just talked 
about. That is what recharges wells and keeps trees, good 
trees, from falling, that everyone is growing out that way as 
well.
    We find that balance, as we are working with aligning and 
things of that nature, but that we understand those ecosystems 
that exist or drinking water in many of these communities which 
would turn into ghost towns if they did not have water and 
there is no other way to get it to them, so just that we are 
thinking about both of those.
    I thank everyone for the time and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Bennet. I also want to say how sorry I am about the 
fires that are occurring in New Mexico. We know it is just a 
matter of time when it is happening again in Colorado. It has 
gotten to the point where we need to write a Farm Bill for the 
21st century that understands what we are dealing with.
    After one of the fires that we had two years ago in 
Colorado fell, it then snowed before anybody could do any work 
on the landscape. You know, that is what happens when you have 
a world where all of a sudden there is no fire season anymore, 
and fires strike year-round. That is what we are dealing with. 
Thank you.
    Senator Hoeven, thank you so much for coming, and the floor 
is yours.
    Senator Hoeven. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to you and the 
Ranking Member for holding the hearing. It is always good to 
follow ``Ray Ban.'' He is one of my favorites.
    Picking up on what the Chairman just said, though--and I 
would ask this to each one of you. If there is one thing in the 
Farm Bill that you think we should make sure that we have got 
there to help with drought, what is it? The first part--I mean, 
there are going to be a number of things, but you know, 
priority one. What is it?
    Mr. Mueller. I would say that funds in the Farm Bill to 
assist with both post-fire recovery and both natural and 
manmade infrastructure in the high country of our watersheds is 
what we truly need.
    Senator Hoeven. Is there something now that is targeted to 
that that you think is effective that we would build on?
    Mr. Muller. There are programs, for instance, the EQIP 
program.
    Senator Hoeven. Yes, we use EQIP a lot.
    Mr. Mueller. Yes, and it is well suited--I spoke just a 
little bit earlier on this, that we have been running into some 
really tremendous issues where people who have approved for, 
and contracted under, EQIP are unable to actually complete the 
projects----
    Senator Hoeven. Yes.
    Mr. Mueller [continuing]. because of the inflation that we 
are seeing on piping, really a problem because I think 
everybody at the Federal Government and our local partners are 
really trying to make these things work. Spreading that limited 
water out is absolutely essential during these----
    Senator Hoeven. Yes, no. I really like that answer because 
EQIP is--and for a lot of other purposes too, our producers 
really like it.
    Mr. Mueller. Yes.
    Senator Hoeven. I think that is right on the money, 
literally. Thank you.
    Mr. Mueller. Thank you.
    Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Senator. I would echo a lot of that 
comment as well. I think EQIP, making sure it has adequate 
funding and also has flexibility. Again, the situation all 
across the West or across the Nation varies greatly.
    Senator Hoeven. Right.
    Mr. Lewis. Being able, in our situation, to be able to 
target those funds toward things that are more irrigation 
technology or things that are going to save us water make us 
more resilient----
    Senator Hoeven. Yes.
    Mr. Lewis [continuing]. I think is key.
    Senator Hoeven. EQIP funding and flexibility, I absolutely 
agree with both of you.
    Doctor.
    Dr. Schultz. Thank you, Senator. In addition, I was going 
to ask for permission to say two things, but these gentlemen 
covered one of mine, which is great.
    I wanted to also bring attention to some of the work we are 
doing with the USDA Climate Hubs. These hubs are really 
dedicated to working with agricultural and forest users across 
the region to do things like drought planning or forecasting of 
conditions. I have been realizing that universities could bring 
a lot to that partnership, and it is already a partnership that 
is in place. We are working on bringing our extension capacity 
to work on drought planning with the Climate Hubs. We are 
working on then integrating that into training the next 
generation work force. We bring some of our research expertise 
on how to communicate effectively.
    I think there might be potential to build that kind of 
thing out. You know, we see these multiyear partnerships with 
USGS and universities in the Climate Adaptation Science 
Centers, and I am wondering if we need something similar on the 
ag and forestry side of things in partnership with USDA and 
leveraging the capacity of the universities as well.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay. Mr. Willis?
    Mr. Willis. Thank you, Senator. I would say, as a producer, 
the key is flexibility, and I say that in terms of getting 
people to adopt--producers now to adopt--technology. Sometimes 
you have to start small. Maybe it is a circle. Maybe it is two. 
It is having that flexibility so they can try it and see that 
it works because we face so many risks. Nobody wants another 
risk, and nobody wants another program that is inflexible or 
has a ton of reporting that needs to go with it.
    If we are truly serious--and I am speaking about western 
Kansas, okay, and eastern--well, Senator Bennet, I guess I am 
going to speak for eastern Colorado, too.
    Senator Bennet. Please do.
    Mr. Willis. From a production perspective, it is having 
that ability to go in and say, try this; try it on two circles.
    If somebody came to me 20 years ago and said, you could cut 
your water usage in half and still keep your bottom line the 
same, I would have laughed at them, but I tried it. I am unique 
because I have a few other businesses. If something did not go 
quite right, it was not like I was going to absolutely lose the 
family farm. A lot of them do not have that.
    Senator Hoeven. You did not have to bet the farm, so to 
speak.
    Mr. Lewis. I what?
    Senator Hoeven. You did not have to bet the farm on trying 
something.
    Mr. Lewis. No. By doing that and having that in there, and 
saying, hey, come and try it.
    When I am talking about flexibility, too, it is saying we 
will have different programs. You want to cut water by 10 
percent? Here is a program. You want to get more aggressive? 
Here is a program.
    In my opinion, you will get a lot better participation, a 
lot better adaptation, because they will see that it works and 
they will see that they are not going to lose their farm and 
they are not going to get bogged down with a lot of the 
inflexibility, I guess, that we have seen.
    Senator Hoeven. Doctor--is it pronounced ``Her-burt'' or 
``Eh-bear?''
    Dr. Herbert. It is ``Her-burt''.
    Senator Hoeven. It is ``Her-burt,'' Okay. The northern 
pronunciation then, eh?
    Dr. Herbert. The northern pronunciation.
    Senator Hoeven. Gotcha. I just want to kind of preface your 
response on this, too, with Mr. Willis said a couple things 
really important. One, the program should fit the producer, the 
farmer or the rancher. You should not make the farmer or the 
rancher for the program. Right?
    A lot of folks think, yes, you know, the farmer or the 
rancher needs to fit the program, but the program should fit.
    When we talk about flexibility, I think Mr. Willis said it 
awfully well. I call it the programs have to be farmer 
friendly, and it really is my opinion--and I love to hunt and 
fish. My wife is a much better fisherperson than I am.
    I think conservation is a real benefit when they have that 
mindset of farmer-friendly programs because they are the ones 
that are out on the land. They own the land. They live and work 
there every day. They do not own public lands, but they are out 
there even on public lands, like in the forest, the grasslands 
in our case, but in the forest.
    Anyway, kind of respond with that thought in mind, right, 
if you would.
    Dr. Herbert. Yes, and you have set me up perfectly. I agree 
with everything that has been said, particularly EQIP.
    One of the programs that has worked really well for us is 
the RCPP and the RCPP alternative funding agreement that allows 
us to do exactly what you are saying. Our soil health and 
livestock integration program in the Dakotas relies on starting 
with interviews with ranchers and producers about what will 
work for them and allows us to be very flexible to design our 
contracting around what works for them, and so that RCPP and 
the AFA program have opened the doors for that.
    They are also opening the doors--everything that has been 
talked about is wonderful, but to execute it, you need people 
in the field interacting with producers. Again, the RCPP 
program has allowed us to get much more technical assistance 
out in the field, talking to producers about what they need and 
designing programs to fit that need, and so I cannot say enough 
about, you know, the ability of that particular program to 
expand NRCS's reach through public-private partnerships and 
meet farmers where they are because designing those programs 
around those production systems is critical to the longevity of 
those programs.
    I will add one more thing, which is we have made a 
significant effort to research and collect data from producers 
on the financial and other natural resource benefits they see 
from conservation practices, and we have the data that says if 
those practices are financially viable producers will continue 
to do them after the contract expires. That requires data to 
show the producer, and that requires us to collect data and 
fund the collection of data.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator Hoeven. Fantastic 
questions.
    Senator Marshall, do you have anything?
    Senator Marshall. I got maybe one more question, Senator 
Bennet. I just want to again thank you for holding the hearing. 
It has been one of the more informative hearings. We have had a 
great panel.
    This is why I came to the Senate--to solve problems like 
this, to solve water conservation issues, to leave this world 
cleaner, healthier, and safer than we found it, to make sure 
that future generations have water.
    I talk about farmers and ranchers being the original 
conservationists. I remember my grandfathers building terraces 
in the 1960's for soil conservation, and now it is our 
generation's turn to take those next steps as well. I 
appreciate the input today.
    I want to close with just one question for Dr. Herbert. The 
reason my wife and I support Ducks Unlimited is because you do 
a great job taking government dollars, the dollars you raise, 
and then you work with local farmers, local ranchers, and then 
you make sure those dollars are spent very efficiently. You 
spend it like it is your own money, and we appreciate that.
    Coming back to my original question for everybody that you 
did not get to answer, and you have alluded to it and parts of 
it, what has not worked, what are we throwing away money on, 
and then what would you accentuate? All these ideas are great 
ideas. Our challenge is how to prioritize the finite dollars 
that we have, and what we spend we want to be spent very 
efficiently.
    Dr. Herbert. Yes, and this has been said by multiple other 
folks from producers to the scientists, but there is a very 
fine balance between collecting data to demonstrate what works 
and what does not work. I mean both biophysical data on weather 
and fires and water use efficiency and financial data on how 
these interact with our producers and production systems or 
return on investment. There is a very fine balance there.
    For us, as I said earlier, the flexibility of some programs 
like RCPP, which does again allow us to leverage public and 
private dollars against Farm Bill, has been extremely important 
for experimenting with new types of practices.
    Senator Marshall. Can you tell us--describe a project that 
you are excited about that has really worked. What does that 
look like?
    Dr. Herbert. Yes. Our interaction--the Rice Stewardship 
Partnership is a great example where we have, I believe, close 
to $100 million in RCPP funds that are leveraged against other 
funds. We have worked with various industry partners and 
agribusiness to develop new technologies, like poly pipe, that 
reduce water use and increase efficiency. It is a really 
exciting partnership because it is bringing together data on 
things like water efficiency and water quality, and bringing 
those together with data on production and the sustenance of 
waterfowl across multiple flyways.
    I think that really exciting partnership was born out of 
the flexibility of the RCPP program and our ability to get 
almost 20 staff out in the field to talk to producers. That is, 
to me, the most exciting thing about some of these programs is 
it starts with a landowner.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Marshall.
    I just have a couple quick questions, one for you, Dr. 
Herbert. First, I completely agree with everything you said 
about RCPP. I think that is an example of program flexibility. 
It is outcomes-based, and it is partnership-driven. Given the 
data that, you know, we all now can collect since this is not 
the 19th century anymore, and being able to measure to those 
kinds of outcomes is really important. It creates a real 
opportunity for us to move the Farm Bill forward in a way that 
would be useful to all of us.
    I just wonder, before you leave, whether you--because Ducks 
Unlimited is so cherished on both sides of the aisle here--if 
you could talk a little bit about what the effect of this 
persistent drought is having on bird populations in the United 
States.
    Dr. Herbert. Thank you for that question, Senator, and I 
will start with the caveat that I am a water scientist, not a 
waterfowl scientist, but I have spent many years with my 
colleagues discussing these issues.
    Unfortunately, this current drought has come at a 
confluence with the COVID pandemic, and that has really limited 
our ability to collect data on water and waterfowl and other 
migratory birds.
    If we look back to other persistent droughts, such as the 
2011, 2015 drought, we saw a drop in the Central Valley of 
California, about half of the breeding population in that 
flyway. As I mentioned before, we are looking at the Klamath 
Basin, which once provided 25,000 acres of wetland. As of last 
fall there were 600 acres of wetland, and that has contributed 
to a botulism outbreak that has killed 50,000 birds. You are 
concentrating them, and the water exchange just is not there.
    Then we know we are just now--at least in the eastern part 
of the Northern Great Plains, the Prairie Pothole Region, the 
duck factory, we are coming out of a two-year drought. I was 
just in the prairies, and things look much better than they did 
two years ago. We know that at least in North Dakota 
populations declined 25 percent just over that two-year drought 
cycle.
    The implications are profound for not just waterfowl but 
migratory birds that depend on these resources. I believe the 
Fish and Wildlife Service statistic is that 40 percent of all 
wildlife depend on wetlands for some portion of their life 
cycle. These droughts do have a pretty profound impact on not 
just waterfowl but many, many species of wildlife that are 
economically and culturally important to us.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Dr. Herbert.
    Dr. Schultz, I am going to ask my last question of you. 
Going to the question of accountability and priorities that 
Senator Marshall raised, what would you like to see out of the 
money that is in the Infrastructure Bill that is going to 
forestry? I think of that as a good down payment. I mean, we 
have a much greater need than that, but, still. How would you 
like to see that money spent so that we are doing it well, and 
could you sort of reinforce what you think the unmet need is in 
terms of forestry in the West?
    Dr. Schultz. Thank you for that question, Senator Bennet. I 
certainly think that the estimates from the Forest Service and 
from partners, like I mentioned, were 40 to 60 billion over the 
next 10 years to really make a dent in reducing risk to 
communities and also protecting watersheds, and so I think 
there is a huge still unmet need to address that in investments 
in our forest.
    Then there is going to be a long-term need to really 
maintain our forests. You know, once we invest in reducing 
those fuels, we then have to maintain those conditions to get 
our return on investment, and that is going to need--that is 
going to mean, you know, putting prescribed fire on those lands 
to keep fuel loads lower. It is going to mean ongoing thinning 
and work in those areas near communities and watersheds. I 
think that that is something that we need to think as a nation 
as a long-term investment in our fire-adapted forests if we 
really want to maintain them for water supply and for carbon 
storage.
    When we are thinking about where to invest, I think that 
the ten-year strategy that the Forest Service has issued makes 
a lot of sense in terms of investing near communities and in 
priority watersheds in our dry, fire-prone forests. That is 
where we really want to focus investments.
    There are a few other things that can guide those 
investments over the next few years. We know that regions and 
States, in their State forest action planning processes, have 
identified a lot of priorities. A lot of that was done under 
this banner of shared stewardship over the last several years. 
Looking to States and local people to say, where are your true 
priorities and where do you have community-based capacity to 
implement them, that is going to be really important.
    Thinking about--you know, I think we want to think about 
this in two ways. One, where do we want to invest in terms of 
the forest and the ecology bill? Where do we want to invest in 
really changing our fire culture and really creating 
communities that are fire-adapted, and so where do we want to 
invest in the people and places that are ready to do that?
    The work takes a lot of capacity from community-based 
partners, so we want to start where we have collaborative 
history and partnerships in place. Things like June 13, 2022 
CFLRP and the Joint Chiefs program have been working well.
    Then I think we want to have more long-term vision of how 
do we invest in communities and places to build longer-term 
capacity, maybe places that have not quite built that 
collaborative capacity and had investments in the past. We do 
not want to just keep investing in the same places where they 
have got it going on, but we want to also build that in other 
places where we have more underserved communities. I think, you 
know, thinking long-term about how we build that capacity to do 
forestry work, to do prescribed fire, and to do cultural 
burning, to support tribes in doing cultural burning and in 
partnership with tribes is going to be really critical in the 
long run if we are going to maintain those forest ecosystems in 
the West.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you for that.
    Thank you to the panel. I think this has been an excellent 
panel.
    I appreciate what you said Senator Marshall, about why you 
came to the Senate. This is the point of it. It is supposed to 
get people that have different points of view, different 
geographies, different perspectives, and get them in a room and 
try to hash out solutions.
    These kinds of partnerships that Dr. Schultz was talking 
about, I mean, are what we need because fire does not know any 
political jurisdiction at all. It can cross from county land to 
private land to State land to Federal land. They are not making 
any more water.
    Nobody is going to be able to solve these problems alone. 
The producers in this country cannot solve it by themselves. 
The Federal Government certainly cannot solve it by itself. I 
hope that today is the start of being able to help align some 
of these goals and objectives and partnerships.
    I certainly look forward to the work we are going to be 
doing in the next Farm Bill to address what the landscape looks 
like in the 21st century and what our producers and others 
need.
    Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here today. I am 
really grateful.
    Thank you, Senator Marshall, for being such a tremendous 
Ranking Member, and I want to also thank your staff who did 
great work with my staff as well.
    To the other Senators who were here, thanks for showing up. 
We would ask that any additional statements or questions you 
may have for the record be submitted to the committee clerk 
five business days from today or 5 p.m. next Tuesday, June 
14th, 2022.
    The hearing is adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

      
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