The central dispute over the Colorado River is still how states will share reductions under operating rules after 2026. A federal plan has sharpened that divide, and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox says the election of five new basin-state governors is unlikely to shift negotiations substantially. The KSL report said Cox expects continuity while looking to build relationships with the incoming officials.
California elected Xavier Becerra, Colorado chose Phil Weiser, Nevada picked Aaron Ford, New Mexico selected Deb Haaland and Wyoming elected Eric Barlow. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs won reelection. Cox said he already knew Barlow, Weiser, Becerra and Haaland and had contacted Ford after Ford’s victory, according to KSL. Utah plans to host a seminar for the incoming governors; what effect it might have on negotiations remains unclear.
The post-2026 dispute
The federal plan, released this summer, requires Arizona, California and Nevada to make annual cuts of 1.25 million acre-feet for two years, while Utah and the other Upper Basin states may voluntarily reduce use by up to 200,000 acre-feet. It also calls for adjustments every few years to account for hydrology over the next decade, KSL reported. The states remain divided over how reductions should be shared.
Nevada sued the federal government in August, arguing that the required cuts were unrealistic and would impose steep reductions on the three Lower Basin states without mandatory cuts for the four Upper Basin states. Arizona later joined the suit. The Nevada Governor’s Office described the allocation as inequitable; ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke said Arizona’s intervention would protect its legal rights while preserving a path to a collaborative outcome, according to the Arizona Governor’s Office. The litigation’s outcome is not known. Utah officials have said a consensus agreement among the states could replace the federal plan, and Cox reported no update on broader negotiations, KSL said.
The disagreement follows years of stalled talks over the size of needed cuts and which states should bear them. Earlier in the year, the seven states failed to agree on how to divide the river’s water, with Upper Basin states citing growing instability as snowpacks diminish, KSL reported. The governors’ turnover comes against that existing divide, not a settled framework.
Earlier agreements—and what they did not settle
There is a recent precedent for a basin agreement, but it addressed near-term conservation rather than post-2026 operations. The Congressional Research Service says Interior and basin states announced a consensus-based proposal in May 2023 for the three Lower Basin states to conserve 3 million acre-feet before 2026, with 2.3 million acre-feet compensated by federal funds. Reclamation formally adopted that proposal in March 2024. It is distinct from the operating rules now in dispute.
State-level negotiations are also only one part of the river’s governance. The Congressional Research Service reported that tribes held diversion rights to approximately 3.4 million acre-feet per year as of December 2020, and noted that the Colorado River Compact did not address tribal rights. Those facts provide legal context for the basin’s water arrangements; they do not resolve the current dispute among states.
Utah’s exposure to the river
The stakes for Utah include water supply as well as the negotiations themselves. KSL reported that state officials estimate the river accounts for about one-third of Utah’s drinking water and that 60% of the state benefits from it. A broader measure from the Colorado River Water Users Association says more than one-quarter of Utah’s overall water supply comes from the river; the figures describe different measures.
Utah’s Division of Water Resources reports that per-capita water use statewide has declined by at least 18%, a demand trend that does not measure Colorado River use alone. For now, the new governors bring fresh relationships to negotiations whose core allocation questions remain unresolved.
