The U.S. Department of the Interior is moving forward with a 10-year framework for managing the Colorado River after 2026, outlining a plan to issue new operating guidelines every two years as the seven basin states remain unable to reach an agreement.

Even so, the Trump administration is still pushing for a seven-state process to craft post-2026 operating guidelines for the river.

Scott Cameron, acting commissioner for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, outlined the department’s ongoing work — and what it may do if states fail to reach an agreement — during remarks on Thursday at the annual Getches-Wilkinson Colorado River conference at the CU Boulder law school.

Cameron told the audience that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum remains committed to helping the seven states solve their collective challenges.

Burghum adopted four principles when he began his role as secretary, according to Cameron.

• A seven-state deal
• The Interior Department’s political leadership must be “heavily, constantly and repeatedly involved with the seven states to get to the deal”
• Indian trust responsibilities
• Finally, if a seven-state deal cannot be reached — which is the status quo — the Interior secretary will do what he has to as water master of the Lower Basin and with limited authority in the Upper Basin.

Cameron joked that he has been spending a day or two at a time in the West with his “seven new best friends” — the representatives of the seven basin states — and their entourages, as they try to chart a path forward.

Then he shifted tone. 

“I wish I could tell you that we had a solution,” he said.

Three times now, the department has provided solutions that it thought represented something the seven states could agree on, he said. 

“Turns out we were wrong,” Cameron said. “We have certainly made the effort. We have been active. We have not been passive.”

Time is running short 

Lake Powell’s new water year begins Oct. 1, and Lake Mead’s starts in December. The department had previously said it wants an agreement in place before those dates.

“Frankly, at this point, we are interested in any multistate agreement that would provide anybody anywhere a little bit more certainty and pose a little bit less risk,” Cameron said.

Given the lack of agreement, the bureau is striking out on its own. It published a draft environmental impact statementin January, with five broadly defined alternatives.

Cameron said, “It was almost inconceivable, at least in our minds, that some seven-state solution could not somehow fall within the boundaries of those five alternatives.”

Based on the impact statement, the bureau — which still does not have a permanent chief — has developed its preferred alternative, known as a 10-year framework.

It’s not what the federal government would have wanted, Cameron said, adding that a 20 or 30-year deal was the goal, but “we haven’t even been able to get seven states to agree on what a two-year deal would look like,” he said.

His next remark caught many in the room off guard. 

If the 10-year framework moved forward, it would require the department to issue new operational guidelines every two years.

Colorado’s Becky Mitchell, who spoke on the framework on Friday morning, said that would require almost constant renegotiation, which she emphasized would be “incredibly difficult.”

Cameron explained the logic behind more negotiations, stating it’s based on the “highly unusual hydroelectric situation for the basin.”

He added that if the seven states eventually reach their own agreement — whether that happens in a year and a half or four and a half years — the department would gladly adopt that deal and let it replace the 10-year framework.

He said the guidelines will take into account what’s actually happening in the river and manage conservatively during low-inflow periods, with the option to transition to recovery if conditions improve across the basin.

Cameron wouldn’t commit to a firm deadline for when the final impact statement and a record of decision would be issued, saying they would be issued in mid- to late summer and would cover 2027 and 2028 operations.

Record-low snowpack further complicates situation

Efforts to reach agreement on post-2026 operating guidelines have been made even more difficult this year by record-low snowpack, which has pushed Lake Mead and Lake Powell to critically low levels.

Lake Powell, in particular, is only about 158 feet above “dead pool,” the point at which the reservoir can no longer generate hydropower.

Federal and state officials are not waiting for the reservoir to fall that far. They have set higher thresholds — about 3,500 feet above sea level — that would trigger additional action.

As of June 4, Powell was at 3,527.94 feet. It dropped more than 32 feet in the past year.

Cameron said maintaining those elevations is essential for protecting operational reliability, redundancy for water delivery and flexibility for power plant operations. 

While his “seven best friends” have repeatedly reminded him that energy is not particularly important and that they’re worried about water, Cameron insisted there is a connection.

Cameron said, “If you look at the growth of data centers across the West, some of them, if not all of them, use water. And those data centers absorb between 60 and 80 megawatts of energy each.”

That need for energy for data centers has now become part of the conversation about the next operating guidelines, Cameron said.

The bureau took action in April to release water from Flaming Gorge, one of three reservoirs on the upper Colorado River Basin, to shore up Lake Powell. The bureau chose not to tap the other two reservoirs — Blue Mesa in Gunnison County and Navajo, which straddles the Colorado-New Mexico border — given the low levels at those reservoirs.

The bureau also decided to cut the amount of water sent from Lake Powell to Lake Mead by 1.5 million acre-feet.

“We’ve succeeded in making everybody unhappy and everybody mad, which maybe means we’re doing the right thing,” Cameron said.