New Mexico

The Department of the Interior's final Environmental Impact Statement comes after years of stalled negotiations. What you think of it depends on which groups of states you stand with: The Upper Basin or the Lower Basin.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation proposal announced Friday spares Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming from facing mandatory water cuts — for now.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are resisting the deal because it would allow the Navajo and Hopi to lease water to cities downstream, likely the growing towns around Phoenix.

Gov. Spencer Cox called geothermal power the answer to not only people’s questions about the Box Elder Stratos data center, “but these types of projects all across the country.”

A recent $1B pledge from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could help chip away at a backlog dating to 1993. But Kennedy says it will take much more — $8B — to replace the seven clinics and hospitals still on the list.

Estevan López, New Mexico's water negotiator, said talks resumed in March, and the upper and lower basin states are using a short-term proposal from Nevada as the starting point.

It's known by the name Velvet-Wood, and the project's Canadian owner got the go-ahead back in May as the first to undergo an "accelerated," two-week environmental review, during which tribes had only seven days to reply.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo released a joint statement Saturday calling on Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico to offer more concessions.

Negotiators are focusing on a five-year agreement for sharing water from the shrinking river. Experts say that would provide some much-needed flexibility.

State negotiators entered the meeting at a years-long impasse over how water restrictions should be managed during dry years. They now have less than two weeks until a federal Feb. 14 deadline.

Dozens of the 575 federally recognized Native American tribes are making it easier to get tribal IDs by waiving fees, lowering the age of eligibility and printing cards on the spot. As Native Americans rush to secure the documents, many see a bitter irony in the first people of the land having to prove that they too are U.S. citizens.

Water leaders in the U.S. West gathered this week in Las Vegas with a hefty task hanging over their heads — figuring out a long-term plan for sharing water from the Colorado River.