Aamodt Litigation Settlement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand in solidarity with my colleague, Representative Ben Ray Luján, in bringing this very challenging chapter in New Mexico history to a close. I also want to thank Chairman Rahall and Chairwoman Napolitano for their support of this settlement.

The Aamodt water rights litigation is literally the oldest active case in our Nation's Federal Court, literally older than myself and my colleague. Since 1966, these communities have waited for a resolution to this case. The bill here before us represents the culmination of decades of hard work and difficult compromise by the effective stakeholders to negotiate an agreement that meets each community's long-term needs.

During the committee hearings we heard from representatives of local, State, and Pueblo governments. And I want to commend each of them for their enduring efforts to achieve this settlement.

The Aamodt water settlement will enable the Secretary of Interior, through the Bureau of Reclamation, to create a long-awaited regional water system. That system will be jointly operated by Santa Fe County, along with the four northern New Mexico Pueblos, and provide a great deal of certainty to all Rio Grande water users. Sixty percent of its capacity will deliver water to the Pueblos, 40 percent will go to the county water utility.

This legislation has been a generation or more in the making, and I look forward to its long-awaited contribution to the well-being of the Pueblos and the future of the entire State of New Mexico.

I would urge my colleagues' support.

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