"The Biden administration on Monday urged a federal judge to reject a state-authored agreement that could end the long-running legal battle over the waters of the Rio Grande, asserting that proposal could bankrupt a major irrigation project.

The Justice Department’s warning was among a slew of objections it has raised to the proposed Rio Grande consent decree, a tentative agreement over the division of the river’s waters between New Mexico and Texas, as well as Colorado (Greenwire, Jan. 10).

The states have been locked in a legal battle in the Supreme Court since 2013, when Texas filed a lawsuit accusing New Mexico water users of shorting the Lone Star State of its fair share of Rio Grande waters under a 1938 compact."

Jennifer Yachnin reports for E&E News February 6, 2023. [2]