Legislative Session Begins in Arizona

At Audubon Southwest, we engage with the Arizona State Legislature to support legislation that stewards our lands and waters; and to oppose legislation that would harm them.

Working across the aisle with both Republicans and Democrats, we have helped affect change over the years.

However, one water policy priority has eluded us: a legislative solution for groundwater management in rural Arizona (those areas outside of Active Management Areas and Irrigation Non-expansion Areas). We need a new tool to give rural Arizonans more flexibility and local control in the management of their precious groundwater resources.

Right now, in nearly 80 percent of the state, communities are suffering under the strain of our de facto rural groundwater management rules: the deepest well wins, and, pump as much as you like. Unrestricted groundwater use hurts all of Arizona, most acutely impacting those areas without management. We can and must do better.

After the 2024 election, Republicans picked up two seats in the Arizona House of Representatives and one seat in the Arizona Senate. Governor Hobbs is in the third year of her first four-year term. This dynamic—a Republican-controlled Legislature combined with a Democratic Governor—necessitates compromise. To advance legislation, Republicans must work with the Governor to develop legislation that won’t be met by her veto pen, and, in turn, the Governor must work with the Republican-controlled Legislature if she is to pass policy priorities that require legislation.

Enter: rural groundwater management. The issue has risen to be one of the top water policy priorities for both Governor Hobbs and the Legislature. Last year, both Republicans and Democrats made progress in the negotiations on rural groundwater management. Unfortunately, they did not get there in time before the close of the 2024 legislative session. Side note: there has been progress on rural groundwater management, to be sure. While not a legislative action, the Arizona Department of Water Resources, under Governor Hobbs’ leadership, declared an Active Management Area in the Willcox Groundwater Basin in December 2024.

Let’s make 2025 the year we pass bipartisan solutions for rural groundwater management. We can better protect existing users from unrestricted groundwater pumping; implement a new, innovative, and flexible tool that supports farmers, cities, industry, and communities; and improves the water future of rural Arizona—not only for communities, farmers, and businesses, but for the habitat and water supplies birds and other wildlife need.

Additional priorities at the Arizona Legislature

We support the continued investment in the state agencies charged with managing, conserving, and protecting water supplies—like rivers and groundwater—for all of Arizona’s residents.

We also support funding that helps improve the resilience of Arizona’s lands and waters. Resilience is the ability to prepare for and adapt to climate shifts and extremes, including rising temperatures, increased drying, and variability in precipitation.

Audubon Southwest supports continued investment in:

• The Arizona Department of Water Resources needs budget funding to support adequate staffing to carry out its duties. It also needs funding for data collection, such as additional index wells to improve our understanding of groundwater and more stream gages to measure water use as well as flow changes over time. It also requires resources to serve as the expert for Arizona’s courts in resolving long-standing water rights disputes.
• The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality needs budget funding for adequate staffing to carry out its duties as well as sufficient funding to monitor the quality of our water supplies—including the ability to enforce rules that protect water quality.
• The Water Infrastructure Finance Authority’s Water Conservation Grant Fund could deploy additional water resilience projects throughout the state with more dedicated funding. The previously available $200 million was distributed to worthy projects across the state, and is projected to yield water savings of up to 5 million acre-feet over the life of the funded projects. Before the application window closed, there was $300 million worth of potential additional conservation projects. There is demonstrated need and buy-in from Arizona water users that they can and want to use less—let’s continue these investments to encourage them to do so.
• The Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund: Reinstating the monies swept by the legislature during the Great Recession for lottery money to fund our State Parks is crucial for protecting numerous sites and landscapes across the state.
• The Arizona Trail: Additional state investments are needed for trail maintenance, planning, and preservation. The Arizona Trail runs 800 miles north from the border with Utah, south to the border with Mexico and is open to non-motorized uses such as hiking, biking, backpacking, and horseback riding.

If needed, we will oppose legislation that would roll back or weaken existing groundwater management or water quality protections. We will also watch for bills that would threaten our public lands in Arizona.

Colorado River and the Arizona Legislature

Arizona is the only state in the Colorado River Basin (out of California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) that needs legislative approval for any agreements it makes on Colorado River water management. Most recently, in 2019, Audubon supported the passage of the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan both at the Arizona Capitol and in Congress. Audubon is currently hard at work with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Colorado River stakeholders to advance solutions for water users and all that depend on a healthy, flowing Colorado River. If a deal can be reached among the states on how to manage the Colorado River after 2026 (when the current guidelines that govern the river expire), we anticipate legislators and the Governor tackling the Colorado River in the 2026 legislative session.

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Stay tuned for more from Audubon Southwest as the legislative session advances. If you want to know when your voice can make a difference on legislation that protects our lands and waters, be sure you are signed up for our Western Water Action Network