U.S. Western states deadlocked on cutting Colorado River use

Seven U.S. Western states that share Colorado River water are poised to miss a federal deadline for drastic consumption cuts amid a megadrought.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in June gave the states 60 days, until mid-August, to devise a plan as human-influenced climate change worsens the region’s driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years.
Without a deal, the bureau may mandate reductions.
“Despite the obvious urgency of the situation, the last 62 days produced exactly nothing in terms of meaningful collective action to help forestall the looming crisis,” one of the negotiators, John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said in an open letter to the bureau on Monday.