Navigating the river of bills

Lawmakers have unleashed a record flood of bills — more than 2,100 — this session. And that pile of multicolored paper and ink has a lot for water wonks to chew on.

In all, 67 (see kids, we’re cool!) bills this session would amend Title 45, the section of state code dealing with state waters and the Arizona Department of Water Resources, according to our legislative tracker, Skywolf.

Some of these are duplicates, but that sum doesn’t include bills that impact water policy in more indirect ways, like by limiting the ability of local governments to raise utility rates or rolling back (or bolstering) environmental regulations.

This week, we’ll try to help you make sense of how these bills fit into broader trends in the water policy debate.

Last Friday was the deadline for legislation to receive a committee hearing in its chamber of origin, marking the end of the road for many of these proposals. In the following days — particularly Wednesday night / Thursday morning — lawmakers sat through marathon floor sessions to pass as much as possible to the other chamber.

As a result, we have a better sense of the water debates that will characterize the back half of session. (Though, as our readers know, strikers and last-minute conference committees mean no bill is truly dead until sine die).

Relatively few of these proposals deal directly with the Colorado River.

But the prospect of major cuts to Arizona’s allocation of the river’s water — or worse, of reservoir dead pool and systemwide collapse — is nevertheless hanging over water discussions this session.

Bills concerning water storage, transfers out of rural groundwater basins, and the ongoing conflict between regulators and subdivision developers all highlight the tension between water users — particularly those in urban and rural Arizona — in times of scarcity.

Opponents of these bills argue that with the river as stressed as it is, now isn’t the time to tinker with state water law. But proponents from agriculture and development communities say lawmakers shouldn’t legislate based on fear of the future.

It’s hard to say at this point in the session how many of these bills Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will sign.

Last year, Hobbs vetoed just about any water bill that didn’t actualize her vision of comprehensive groundwater management reform.

But while last session began with ambitions of a bipartisan groundwater package, Hobbs hasn’t made her decision-making process quite as clear this time around.

That said, many of the water bills this session are retreads of bills Hobbs has vetoed in sessions past.

Most of the water bills that make it through the legislative process will carry the names of a small number of influential Republicans from rural Arizona, in particular House Natural Resources, Energy & Water chair Gail Griffin.

She’s one of this session’s most prolific legislators, and the veteran Southern Arizona lawmaker has long wielded considerable influence over what water policies get committee hearings.

In total, Griffin’s committee has heard 130 bills so far this session and passed 79 of them. Of those 79, more than half carry Griffin’s name as a sponsor.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee, helmed by Sen. T.J. Shope, has heard 71 bills and passed 28.

That’s too many bills for us to get into here. But many of the proposals deal with similar issues.

So, as a quick-and-dirty guide to “crossover week,” here are three water policy issues — with associated bills — that lawmakers will be wrestling with in the second half of the session.

We said that most water bills this session don’t deal directly with the Colorado River, and that’s true in so far as the main debates that will determine the river’s future are taking place at the federal level.

But lawmakers still offered their two cents — or rather, their $1 million.

House Bill 2116, sponsored by Griffin, appropriates $1 million to the state’s Colorado River litigation fund.

House Concurrent Resolution 2038, which expresses the Legislature’s support for a seven-state agreement on post-2026 river operations that protects Arizona’s interest and distributes cuts between the Upper and Lower basins, has also made it through committee with broad approval. (What would we be without wishful thinking?)

Of the dozens of proposed constitutional amendments and ballot referrals lawmakers are considering, only a few deal with water.

These include Mesa GOP Rep. Justin Olson’s HCR2052, which would block cities from raising fees, including utility rates like water, for five years.

On the other side of the aisle, Tucson Senate Democrat Priya Sundareshan’s SCR1039 asks the voters to levy a fee on groundwater withdrawals on state land. Other Democratic proposals would amend the Constitution to enshrine a right to a clean and healthful environment.

None of these Democratic proposals has received a committee hearing.

As our readers probably remember, in 2023, the state imposed a moratorium in the Phoenix Active Management Area on new subdivisions that would rely on groundwater, particularly impacting planned developments in far-flung suburbs like Queen Creek and Buckeye.

Lawmakers and regulators have added some release valves since, like the ag-to-urban and ADAWS (Alternative Designation of Assured Water Supply) programs.

But the so-called unmet demand finding that undergirds the moratorium — and more generally, how the state decides who has enough water to build — remain controversial. Basically, regulators want more development to occur within the service areas of designated providers, while builders and other free-market types want the flexibility to build subdivisions outside of these areas. The Home Builders Association of Central Arizona is suing ADWR over the unmet demand finding, while the HBACA and Republican legislative leaders are jointly challenging the ADAWS program.

Following suit, GOP lawmakers this session are looking for ways to make it easier for developers to build subdivisions, while also (some would argue) thumbing the eye of regulators and big cities who are a bit more secure in their water futures.

One of the bills we’re keeping an eye on is HB2026, which says that state regulators must only consider “specific water sources dedicated to the proposed use” when making determinations of assured water supply for subdivision development in AMAs, even if that water shares a delivery system with, for example, groundwater. Commingling rules are their own can of worms, but basically, opponents worry this change could lead to unreplenished groundwater pumping.

We’ve also been watching HB2027, which opponents warn could upend existing groundwater availability rules in the Phoenix AMA and lead to exploding enrollment in the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, thus requiring more water to be restored to the aquifer than CAGRD could reasonably obtain.

Proponents of the bill, like HBACA lobbyist Spencer Camps, have intimated in committee hearings that part of the motivation for the proposal is to cause some of the same disruption to users inside provider service areas that builders outside of those service areas experienced following the moratorium.

Finally, some bills look to complicate ADWR’s oversight authority. HB2028, for example, would make certain ADWR water supply determinations appealable before the state Office of Administrative Hearings — thus opening the door for people outside the agency to decide who has enough water to build. That bill made it out of the House and awaits Senate action.

Water warriors love to fight about storage. It’s an important concept — after all, providers and users alike are looking for ways to consume less of their water supplies and save more for later.

Storing water for long enough and in certain ways also generates what are called long-term storage credits, a form of “paper water” that can be cashed in down the line to serve a number of needs — to demonstrate an assured water supply for the purposes of development permitting, to fulfill groundwater replenishment obligations, and more. (Paper water can also be bought and sold more easily than “wet” water).

But some lawmakers and advocates would argue that there are other users with lower-priority water who might be able to put some of this stored water to use. (Remember that farmers in Pinal County were forced to fallow fields after the vast majority of their Central Arizona Project supplies were cut.)

And there’s “unmet demand” in the Phoenix AMA. So, they argue, why do some big users get to store water while others can’t use any?

Along that line, we’ve been watching bills this session that would limit the ability of cities in particular to accrue long-term storage credits.

HB2099 would prohibit ADWR from crediting municipal providers with long-term storage credits for Colorado River water or Central Arizona Project water that is stored during a declared Colorado River shortage.

Griffin made the underlying motivation of these bills fairly clear, telling her colleagues in one committee meeting: “If [cities] order more than they need, they store it, when someone down the road like agriculture could use that water.”

You may have heard talk in these pages or elsewhere about groundwater transfers from the Harquahala Valley.

Generally, law and precedent forbid the transportation of groundwater from one basin to an active management area. But the Harquahala Basin was set aside in law as a potential source of transfers to the AMAs. Cities like Buckeye and Queen Creek have already availed themselves of this exemption.

This year, lawmakers are looking at other potential sources of transferrable groundwater. But not without some caveats — in particular, HB2757 would allow for transfers from the Butler Valley, but only for certain types of uses in La Paz County, thus preventing entities in the Phoenix AMA from using the water.

Another bill, HB2758, would allow transfers of water from the McMullen Valley to AMAs or to certain eligible uses in La Paz County.

That’s bad news for local citizens of the valley who are worried about subsidence and dry wells if companies are able to buy up local water and send it to population centers.

That’s the long and short of the legislative session so far. But there’s still a lot more sausage-making to be done once these bills make it to the opposite chamber. And by the end of session, we'll also hopefully have a better sense of how much Colorado River water Arizona stands to lose (somewhere between a lot and almost all), which could cast legislative water discussions in a new light. And, by then, we'll also get a clearer picture of what, if any, GOP water legislation Hobbs is likely to sign.