Pressure from Tipton Helps End Overreaching Federal Blueways Program

Press Release

After a year of pressure from Congressman Scott Tipton (R-CO) and his colleagues on the House Natural Resources Committee, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has announced that she is dissolving the controversial Blueways program.

Jewell's predecessor, Secretary Ken Salazar, issued Secretarial Order 3321 establishing the National Blueways System. Blueways is a "source to mouth, watershed-wide" federal program that raised the fears of many local water conservation districts who are already doing an outstanding job of managing precious water supplies. Jewell announced in July that she was putting the Blueways order on hold.

Many local water users feared that the National Blueways System, managed by a committee of federal bureaucrats, would result in potential diversions of privately held water rights and the violation of state law, under which those rights are granted. Tipton has long-opposed the Blueways Order and has worked with his colleagues on the Western Caucus and House Natural Resources Committee to stop its implementation. In a July 2013 Natural Resources Committee hearing, Tipton grilled Jewell on numerous concerns with Blueways and pressured the Secretary to stand with him in defense of Colorado's water rights.

"The cancellation of the Blueways program is welcome news, and I'm pleased that the Secretary has heeded our call. Blueways would have disregarded long-held state water law and private property rights to establish a new federal bureaucracy that would have upended more than a century of local conservation efforts that responsibly protect and manage our precious water supply," said Tipton. "Western water rights are still at risk of federal takings, and we continue to see federal land management agencies overreaching and abusing the rights of private water users. In order to permanently protect private water rights from federal takings and provide certainty for all water users, Congress must act and pass the bipartisan Water Rights Protection Act. I will continue to work to advance this needed legislation to protect all water users and ensure that our most precious resource is not subject to the control of Washington bureaucrats."

H.R. 3189, the Water Right Protection Act, which Tipton introduced in September with bipartisan support from Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), has received strong support from a broad coalition of local, state and national stakeholders concerned with recent federal attempts to hijack privately-held water rights. It has been passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee and is awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives.

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