Sen. Kelly Continues to Deliver on Commitment to Secure Arizona’s Water Future

In the Senate, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly has continued to break through partisan gridlock to deliver on his commitment to protect Arizona’s precious water resources and secure its water future. As a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) and the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), Kelly has played a key role in shaping landmark legislation and secured historic investments to combat western drought, improve water resilience, fix and modernize water infrastructure, and protect clean drinking water sources.

Kelly has also continued to push the Biden administration to ensure it is using every tool at its disposal to protect Arizona and western states from the impacts of drought. See how Kelly has worked to secure key investments for Arizona:

Addressing Western Drought:

Kelly negotiated and secured $4 billion in funding to combat historic western drought in the landmark Inflation Reduction Act now law. The Kelly-secured funding will be used to establish a newly created Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program. The program, which will be managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, will help increase water conservation, improve water efficiency, and protect Lake Powell and Lake Mead’s reservoirs from falling to critically low elevations. 

Kelly also secured provisions in the Water Resources Development Act of 2022 that will open the door to more Army Corps assistance for drought mitigation projects in Arizona. This includes making available $200 million for water infrastructure projects in Arizona. 

Strengthening Western Water Infrastructure: 

As a key negotiator of the western water provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Kelly secured more than $8 billion to strengthen western water infrastructure, fund the Drought Contingency Plan, increase funding available from the Army Corps of Engineers and much more. This ensures Arizona receives much-needed investments in local water infrastructure projects, including water supply agreements for agricultural and municipal stakeholders in Arizona who will be impacted by Colorado River water decreases. 

Earlier this year, Kelly announced that $82.8 million from the law was coming to Arizona to support 13 water and environmental infrastructure projects across Arizona to improve outdated water systems and environmental infrastructure.

Addressing PFAS and Other Contaminants:

In the Senate, Kelly has worked to combat Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals,” threatening Arizona’s groundwater. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Kelly secured $10 billion in investments to address these forever chemicals. Of this funding, Arizona will see $109 million from the law to upgrade wastewater infrastructure and clean up water contaminants like PFAS in communities across the state. As drought conditions in Arizona worsen, Kelly has pushed EPA and other federal agencies to quickly provide assistance to protect Arizona’s backup sources of drinking water.