“the freeze is just one of a series of unprecedented moves the Trump administration has made that are worrying the officials charged with keeping taps running and irrigation water flowing across a region that spans a broad swath of the West, including the cities of Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego.
That includes the president’s day-one executive order to boost California water deliveries that led to an abrupt release of billions of gallons that nearly flooded downstream farms.
And Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has made dramatic staffing cuts at the Bureau of Reclamation that are threatening its ability to operate the complex and aging system of reservoirs, canals and pumps that actually move water across the West in some regions.
The ongoing funding interruption is throwing a wrench into the works at a precarious moment. The states that share the perennially oversubscribed waterway are trying to write new rules to govern it — and negotiators see the next few months as the window to stave off paralyzing litigation.
The federal drought dollars were a crucial component of those negotiations.
“This is now a major, major problem,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who has sent multiple letters to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on the freeze of payments from a $4 billion pot in the Inflation Reduction Act that has been going to pay cities, farms and tribes to forgo water deliveries and funding major infrastructure projects that conserve water over the long term.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/11/water-worlds-quiet-trump-freak-out-00223964