releases: http://tipton.house.gov/press-release/tipton-effort-protect-water-rights-advances-interior-appropriations-bil
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
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| http://tipton.house.gov/press-release/tipton-effort-protect-water-rights-advances-interior-appropriations-bil | Tipton Effort to Protect Water Rights Advances in Interior Appropriations Bill | 2014-07-15 | 2014 | 2014-07 | Republican | House | CO | Scott Tipton | T000470 | tipton.house.gov | legacy | WASHINGTON—Today, the House Appropriations Committee included Congressman Scott Tipton’s (R-CO) language to protect privately-held water rights as part of the FY 2015 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Tipton’s language, which was included in the bill advanced during a Committee markup today, prohibits funds from being used by the federal government to take privately-held water without compensation. In March, Tipton and a number of his western colleagues wrote House Appropriators to request that the language be included: Over the past decade, there have been numerous cases when the federal government has attempted to circumvent long-established state water law in order to take privately-held water rights without paying for them. By using the federal permit, lease, and land management process to extort water rights from those who hold rights under state law, the federal government is overreaching, violating private property rights, and the United States Constitution. As you know, water is the lifeblood of the Western United States and all water users including grazers, farmers, ski areas, businesses, tribes and municipalities need certainty that all federal land management agencies, not just the Forest Service, are prohibited from future attempts to take privately-held water rights. Therefore, my colleagues and I are submitting the following report language for consideration in the fiscal year 2015 Appropriations bill to protect privately held water rights from uncompensated federal takings. “None of the funds made available in this or any other Act may be used to condition the issuance, renewal, amendment, or extension of any permit, approval, license, lease, allotment, easement, right-of-way, or other land use or occupancy agreement on the transfer of any water right, including sole and joint ownership, directly to the United States, or any impairment of title, in whole or in part, granted or otherwise recognized under State law, by Federal or State adjudication, decree, or other judgment, or pursuant to any interstate water compact. Additionally, none of the funds made available in this or any other Act may be used to require any water user to apply for or acquire a water right in the name of the United States under State law as a condition of the issuance, renewal, amendment, or extension of any permit, approval, license, lease, allotment, easement, right-of-way, or other land use or occupancy agreement.” See their full letter HERE. The FY 2015 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act included their requested language under Section 438. See the bill HERE. As one of Congress’s most vocal defenders of Colorado and Western water and private property rights, Tipton is leading the charge to stop federal attempts to take or inhibit access to those rights. Tipton is currently fighting to block implementation of proposed EPA and Forest Service regulations that would amount to the largest federal water grab in American history, and recently raised concerns that a proposed ski area permit condition is a façade while the Forest Service continues to attempt to obtain private water rights. In April, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Tipton’s Water Rights Protection Act (H.R. 3189), with bipartisan support, to uphold state water law and protect private water rights from uncompensated federal takings. The bill is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate. The Water Rights Protection Act: Prohibits federal land management agencies from implementing a permit condition that requires the transfer of privately-held water rights to the federal government in order to receive or renew a permit for the use of land; Prohibits the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture from imposing other conditions that require the transfer of water rights without just compensation; Upholds longstanding federal deference to state water law; and Has no cost to taxpayers. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |