Sponsors (3)
Official title: To approve the settlement of water rights claims of the Yavapai-Apache Nation in the State of Arizona, to authorize construction of a water project relating to those water rights claims, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 26, 2025 by Eli Crane · Last progress December 26, 2025
The bill delivers substantial federal funding and legally binding water rights and infrastructure to secure water access for the Yavapai‑Apache Nation and nearby communities, at the cost of broad tribal claim waivers, increased federal spending, shifted long‑term O&M burdens to local beneficiaries, and expanded administrative discretion that reduces some oversight and remedies.
Members of the Yavapai‑Apache Nation and residents of nearby rural communities will gain durable, treated drinking water and wastewater infrastructure (Cragin‑Verde pipeline, Túńlįíníchoh project, Middle Verde upgrades) that improves water quality and reliability.
The Yavapai‑Apache Nation receives a final, federally authorized settlement that clarifies and quantifies the Nation's water rights and reduces future litigation risk for tribal members and non‑tribal water users.
Large, dedicated federal appropriations and trust/fund structures (including near‑term and investment‑earnings uses) provide financing and planning certainty to move long‑term water projects from design to construction and sustain project accounts.
Members of the Yavapai‑Apache Nation (and the Nation itself) waive broad past, present, and many future water claims and limit the ability to sue over certain diversions—reducing legal recourse and transferring risk in exchange for the settlement.
Federal taxpayers and the federal budget face large, multi‑hundred‑million dollar outlays to implement the settlement and infrastructure without dedicated offsets, raising deficit and priority‑setting concerns.
Long‑term operation, maintenance, and replacement costs are shifted to the Nation and local beneficiaries (pro rata O&M, advanced pumping/energy payments, lease cash‑flow burdens), which can strain tribal and local budgets over time.
Based on analysis of 32 sections of legislative text.
Implements a Yavapai‑Apache Nation water rights settlement, funds and directs construction of the Cragin‑Verde Pipeline and YAN Drinking Water System, places specified lands into trust, and creates a multi‑subaccount settlement Trust Fund.
Provides federal funds, land-into-trust, and legal ratification to implement a negotiated Yavapai‑Apache Nation water rights settlement and to build the Túńlį́į́níchoh Water Infrastructure Project (Cragin‑Verde Pipeline and YAN Drinking Water System). It requires the Nation to execute broad waivers of competing water claims (with limited retained rights), creates trust and project accounts, directs Interior to take specified parcels into trust, mandates planning and construction by the Bureau of Reclamation, and ties effectiveness to multiple findings the Secretary must publish (with a repeal date if not effective by mid‑2035). The bill authorizes and conditions federal appropriations and indexed transfers into two project accounts and a multi‑subaccount Trust Fund, sets operation/maintenance and cost‑allocation rules, permits limited leasing/exchanges of CAP water by the Nation, and establishes narrow sovereign immunity waivers and administrative rules for implementing and enforcing the settlement and projects.