Rep. Juan Ciscomani blames Arizona Democrats for fumbling Colorado River negotiations

U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani on Tuesday accused Arizona Democratic leaders of squandering the state’s leverage in Colorado River water negotiations.

The southern Arizona Republican said Gov. Katie Hobbs and U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego chose to pick fights with the Trump administration rather than work with the federal government.

“They are the ones leading this. In my mind, they’ve been playing some politics with this and decided to throw rocks at the administration instead of actually working with them,” Ciscomani said on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show.

The second-term Republican questioned what burden the Upper Basin states are bearing, noting that none of the four (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) face mandatory water cuts under the new plan.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who joined the same program minutes later, pushed back on the premise that Upper Basin states are escaping accountability and called the situation manageable.

“Arizona’s done a fantastic job of managing using less water, even if they have more people in all these critical industries,” Burgum said.

The exchange came four days after Burgum signed new operating guidelines that cut Arizona’s Colorado River allocation by 760,000 acre-feet annually, roughly 30% and the largest single reduction among the three Lower Basin states.

California will lose 440,000 acre-feet and Nevada 50,000.

Nevada has already sued to block the plan.

Ciscomani is up for reelection in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, which stretches across southeastern Arizona and parts of Tucson. His Democratic challenger, JoAnna Mendoza, is a retired Marine Corps drill instructor who grew up in southern Arizona as the daughter of farmworkers.

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