White House threatens to veto water bill

A dispute between Colorado ski areas and the Forest Service has caught the attention of the White House, which threatens to veto a water rights bill that U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, plans to present on the House floor Thursday. “This is important to the West. We hope the president won’t politicize this, because this isn’t a Republican or Democrat issue,” Tipton said in a phone interview. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, is a co-sponsor of Tipton’s bill, and a few other Western Democrats also support it. The Forest Service has sought greater control of ski water rights since the 1980s. A federal judge in Denver overturned a previous agency policy that required ski areas to assign their water rights to the government in return for lease extensions. The agency plans to release a new policy for public review soon. But lawmakers aren’t waiting, because they see a broader threat to federal control of Colorado’s water. “Basically, it comes down to, does Colorado decide its water rights system, or does the federal government?” Roberts said at a meeting of the Senate State Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Kristin Moseley, a lawyer for Vail Resorts and several mountain water districts, said ski water rights might originate on public land, but they were developed by private companies at considerable expense. She compared the Forest Service’s claiming of water rights to confiscating ski lifts and hotels belonging to resorts. “It’s not their water. It was private water all the time,” Moseley said....more