2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended

• Title: 2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended
• IBCC - Doc Type: Legislation

2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended

Page 3 of 49

Based on this needs assessment and using the data from the initial
SWSI report, each roundtable will develop projects and methods
for meeting the water needs of their basin as defined in this needs
assessment.

From there basin roundtables again in each of the nine affected
areas will take their ideas and proposals to a new statewide venue
for negotiations. This statewide venue is dubbed the inter-basin
compact committee in the legislation. It's made up of two
members from each of the nine basin roundtables and seven
appointments made by the Governor. The Governor's
appointments represent a broad array of interests and stakeholders
from agriculture to environmental, recreational, municipal and
industrial water users.

In this venue the hope and the expectation is that basin roundtable
representatives will seek out the kind of win-win solutions that
have always marked progress and water in the state of Colorado
when we've been able to achieve progress. The kind of
agreements that are needed for this state to make real and lasting
progress in fulfilling the beneficial use of its compact entitlements.

From there, there's a ratification process that's very clear in the
legislation. It's a three-step process. Proposed compacts arising
from these negotiations again go through three phases. The
Statewide Inter-Basin Compact Committee must lend its
preliminary approval. The second phase is that each affected local
basin roundtable must lend its support to any proposed compact.
Finally the Colorado General Assembly will provide its sort of
statewide perspective and must approve a compact before it
becomes final and binding as a matter of law.

Once a compact, an agreement, works its way through that
ratification, the compact will have the force of law in contract and
that compact can only be modified or obligated with the consent of
all the basin roundtables affected by the compact.

So, the next sending out point, the logical question that everybody
asks is well, what's going to be in these compacts? What will their
terms be? What can we expect these agreements to embody?
These are obviously legitimate and understandable questions and I
know we'll get into them more as the questions goes forward, but I
can tell you that this legislation does not and will not pre-judge or
pre-ordain an answer to that question and frankly it shouldn't. The
bill is not about and not intended to put the General Assembly in

www.escriptionist.com

Page 3 of 49