Opinion: Delivering water to the West
… The federal government’s current approach to this imbalance is the equivalent of trying to cure cancer with a Band-Aid. Instead of pursuing a long-term solution, Washington is using federal funds to pay states and tribal nations to leave water in the river instead of taking their full allocation. Mostly, that means paying farmers to stop farming. That is not a viable long-term solution, and strategically, we need to be encouraging MORE local farming and food production, not less. It does make sense to assist local farmers in switching to crops that require less water, but it does not make sense to put American farmers out of business and make us more reliant on food trucked or shipped thousands of miles before it arrives on our tables.
-Written by Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who is running for the U.S. Senate.