{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/barrasso-questions-secretary-burgum-on-wild-horse-overpopulation-colorado-river-basin-and-permitting-reform/", "Barrasso Questions Secretary Burgum on Wild Horse Overpopulation, Colorado River Basin, and Permitting Reform", "2026-04-29", "2026", "2026-04", "Republican", "Senate", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", "barrasso", "https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom/news-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) questioned U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on addressing wild horse overpopulation, managing water resources in the Colorado River Basin, including Wyoming\u2019s Flaming Gorge Reservoir, and permitting reform efforts.\n\nSenator Barrasso also thanked Secretary Burgum for the U.S. Department of the Interior\u2019s (DOI\u2019s) efforts to amend the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP) to free up millions of acres of land in southwest Wyoming for multiple-use.\n\nSecretary Burgum testified at today\u2019s Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee hearing to examine President Trump\u2019s budget request for DOI for Fiscal Year 2027.\n\nOn the Rock Springs RMP:\n\n\u201cThanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I\u2019m grateful for you to be here. I just want to thank you for all you\u2019re doing.\n\n\u201cI want to briefly thank you and your team for offering efforts to amend the Rock Springs RMP.\n\n\u201cI want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for continuing to work with stakeholders in Wyoming toward a plan that considers the state\u2019s priorities. So, thanks for all of that.\u201d\n\nOn Managing Wild Horse Overpopulation:\n\n\u201cI did want to talk about the overpopulation of wild horses. There are about 7,000 wild horses in excess in southwest Wyoming.\n\n\u201cThis overpopulation has a terrible impact on the health of the landscape.\n\n\u201cThe Biden administration cancelled and delayed horse gathering for two years. This mismanagement greatly set Wyoming back in the Bureau\u2019s mission to responsibly manage the wild herds in the West.\n\n\u201cIn 2025, the Bureau of Land Management announced a plan to remove over 3,000 wild horses in this area of Wyoming \u2013 Congress has already provided funding to do it.\n\n\u201cOn Friday, April 24 \u2013 last Friday \u2013 the BLM field office announced that they won\u2019t be able to start these gatherings until August of 2027 due to pending litigation.\n\n\u201cCan you just describe what\u2019s going on and bring us up to date?\u201d\n\nFollow Up:\n\n\u201cWould the Bureau be willing to start rounding up horses based off what is called the \u2018appropriate management level\u2019 while the Rock Springs RMP is being amended, as a possibility?\u201d\n\nOn the Colorado River Basin and Flaming Gorge Reservoir:\n\n\u201cI wanted to move to the Colorado River Basin. It\u2019s something that is a great concern to all of us on the committee. Specifically, seven states of the Upper Basin that include Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.\n\n\u201cAnd currently, the Upper and Lower Basins have still not come to a consensus agreement through negotiations to determine the operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead.\n\n\u201cWe need short-term as well as long-term solutions that provide westerners the water certainty we need.\n\n\u201cOn April 17 of this year, the Bureau of Reclamation published its 24-month study showing that Lake Powell will reach critical elevations as early as this summer.\n\n\u201cThe Bureau is planning on releasing an additional 660,000 to 1 million acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge, which is of great interest to me.\n\n\u201cDoes the Bureau have any plans in the works to restore the water being released in Flaming Gorge?\u201d\n\nFollow Up:\n\n\u201cYou look at the history of this \u2013 and we\u2019re about 103 or 104 years into this compact. It was based on a misunderstanding of how much rain they would expect \u2013 what kind of moisture they were expecting when they came up with it.\n\n\u201cThey used wet years, which was a mistake in their calculations over 100 years ago. And then they never saw, first off, 40 million people drawing from this. Whether its Las Vegas \u2013 whether its Phoenix.\n\n\u201cSo, they made some early mistakes that we\u2019re now in this situation having to deal with.\n\n\u201cI understand that the Lower Basin met with the Bureau just last week.\n\n\u201cIs the Department still committed to a Seven-State Basin solution? And would the agency be willing to meet with the Upper Basin as well?\u201d\n\nOn Permitting Reform:\n\n\u201cIn terms of permitting, Congress is currently, as you know, engaged in serious conversations about permitting reform.\n\n\u201cWhat do you view as a top priority in permitting reform?\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-04-30T06:05:15Z", "2026-04-30T06:07:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/barrasso-questions-secretary-burgum-on-wild-horse-overpopulation-colorado-river-basin-and-permitting-reform/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7969012260437012, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}