What the Biden victory means for our rivers and clean water
American Rivers is ready to work with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and their administration to repair the substantial damage to rivers and clean water.
One of my favorite quotes is from Leonardo da Vinci, “In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.” Elections are like rivers, framed by what has happened in the past and full of possibility for the future. This year’s election is no exception.
Now that it appears that Joe Biden is our President-elect, American Rivers is ready to work with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and their administration to repair the substantial damage to rivers and clean water done by the Trump administration over the past four years and, going forward, make real progress in protecting and restoring rivers and conserving clean water. We’ve identified five priorities for the Biden-Harris administration and Congress in our 2021 Blueprint for Action:
- Invest in rivers and clean water to recover from COVID-19
- Reverse regulatory rollbacks and restore strong, effective federal protection for rivers and clean water
- Improve protection and management of the nation’s floodplains
- Launch a national initiative to prioritize and fund dam removals
- Increase protection of Wild and Scenic rivers
While some of these priorities can be accomplished by the new administration itself, many will require congressional action. Regardless of which party controls the Senate (and we may not know until January following runoff elections in Georgia), Congress will continue to be closely divided, making bipartisanship even more important.
The need for bipartisanship was amply demonstrated in this year’s election when voters on Colorado’s Western Slope voted overwhelmingly to pass ballot measure 7A, raising property taxes to provide nearly $5 million annually for protecting water supplies for farmers and ranchers, drinking water for Western Slope communities, and rivers for fish, wildlife, and recreation. American Rivers joined with a bipartisan group of stakeholders to lead the campaign for 7A. As Colorado River District general manager Andy Mueller said in The Aspen Times, the results prove that water “was the one issue that’s not partisan, that was about uniting a very politically diverse region. Everybody is so sick of the nasty, divisive, partisan politics. People with Trump signs and Biden signs voted for the same thing.”
Our slogan at American Rivers, Rivers Connect Us, is worth remembering as a newly elected President Biden and Congress tackle the nation’s pressing issues in the next four years. While there is a Republican River that flows through Nebraska and Kansas, and a Democrat Creek in Colorado, support for rivers and clean water should not be a partisan issue.
3 responses to “What the Biden victory means for our rivers and clean water”
Residents of Las Vegas and tourists alike want to have Lake Mead open for boating for future generations of kids to enjoy with their families. Our legislators allotment of water for Lake Mead isn’t enough. We are ahead of our water conservation in our state but we need political help to keep our lake open for future generations of boating families to enjoy. We see states like California using an amazing amount of water for their over 3,300 lakes and 440 Marinas and conserving less water–we just want our lake that is a big tourist destination open forever to boating-why not!!
Another potential target for Federal guidance is instream flow regimes targeted to not degrade rivers for public trust uses (e.g., recreation, support of fish and wildlife).
While largely under State control, many states (e.g., South Carolina) have no scientifically valid instream flow criteria. Water above what they consider as minimum instream flow levels (again no scientifically derived values) may be allocated for withdrawal affecting stream resources and stream channel dynamic stability.
Under the “new” EPA, Federal input and guidance to states on this could be very influential in keeping our rivers healthy.
And Biden’s first move is nominating Cedric Richmond as his climate movement liaison – a fossil fuel industry ally with one of the worst Democratic environmental scores by the League of Conservation Voters.
I can only hope American Rivers will hold Biden to the same standards they have Trump, but I have my doubts they can see past their own partisan blinders. Calling out the above would be a nice first step in proving me wrong.