Sponsors (2)
Official title: Provide for the settlement of the water rights claims of the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 11, 2025 by Mark Edward Kelly · Last progress March 11, 2025
The bill trades large, near‑term federal funding and legally certain, quantified tribal water allocations and infrastructure for tribes (improving potable water access and long‑term planning) against significant concessions: tribes waive broad historic claims and accept operational limits, deadlines, federal oversight, cost‑shifts, and environmental and fiscal risks that reduce flexibility for tribes and increase federal and local exposures.
Tribal residents (Navajo Nation, Hopi, San Juan Southern Paiute) will get large, dedicated federal trust funds and upfront appropriations to plan, design, and build potable water projects and related infrastructure, improving drinking water access and enabling major construction.
The Act creates legally final, quantified settlement terms resolving long‑running tribal water claims and providing legal certainty for tribal water entitlements and trusteeship, reducing litigation uncertainty for tribes, the United States, and other water users.
Specific water allocations and pipeline deliveries (including permanent allocations like Navajo's 44,700 AFY and pipeline potable water volumes) give tribes and nearby communities predictable water supplies for municipal, agricultural, and household uses, enabling multiyear planning.
Tribal members and governments give up broad past, present, and future water‑rights claims (including aboriginal and certain Colorado River claims) and individual claim avenues, significantly limiting tribes' and individuals' future legal remedies or bargaining power over water.
The federal government (taxpayers) must provide very large mandatory transfers (roughly $5.136 billion plus potential earnings and further costs), increasing federal outlays and fiscal exposure to cost overruns or long‑term obligations.
The Act imposes significant constraints and conditions on how tribes may use or transfer water (limits on off‑reservation use, caps on certain spending, prohibition on per‑capita distributions), reducing tribal flexibility to respond to changing needs or to monetize water for community benefit.
Based on analysis of 42 sections of legislative text.
Creates Interior‑managed tribal water settlement trust funds, directs $5.1364B in Treasury transfers (pipeline + trusts), allocates Colorado River entitlements, and mandates construction of a tribal pipeline under conditional enactment.
Creates multi-tribal water settlement trust funds, directs large Treasury transfers to fund those trusts and a major pipeline, allocates specified Colorado River water entitlements to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, and authorizes construction and operation of the iiná bá – paa tuwaqat’si pipeline. The bill conditions full legal effect on a set of required executed agreements, court decrees, and federal findings (an "Enforceability Date"), requires limited tribal waivers of sovereign immunity for enforcement of the settlement, and establishes detailed rules for accounting, leasing, and use of water rights and trust fund withdrawals.