 | BY ANNIE SNIDER | | | 
Irrigation pumps on a canal in Holtville, Calif. The region relies on water from the Colorado River. | Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images | PARCHED — The future of the American West is quietly being hashed out in the conference rooms of a Las Vegas casino this week. Just across the strip from the Bellagio’s fountains, in the shadow of an enormous Eiffel Tower-knock-off, negotiators from the seven states that share the Colorado River are racing to reach a deal on how to share the West’s most important — and shrinking — waterway. Climate change has shriveled the river’s flows by more than 20 percent over the past two decades, and the only question now is how much worse things will get. The negotiations over how to share the pain of bringing water use in line with the shrunken waterway will have huge implications for the 40 million people who rely on it at their taps in metro areas from Denver to Phoenix to San Diego, as well as for the powerhouse farming operations that use roughly three-quarters of the river’s water to irrigate some of the country’s most productive agricultural land. Also on the line are the interests of 30 federally-recognized tribes along the river and the 11 national parks and monuments it courses through, including the Grand Canyon. The politics present an absolute landmine for the Biden administration , which has taken a much more aggressive approach with the affected states than its predecessors. The sharpest pain will be centered on the three lower river states: Arizona and Nevada — two crucial political swing states – and California, home of the Democratic Party’s most deep-pocketed donors and whose governor is widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions. Especially contentious is the fault line between farmers, who typically hold the most protected rights to the river, and the urban areas that are the states’ economic engines and are home to their voting bases, but are first in line for water delivery cuts under the century-old legal regime that governs the river. “This is going to be the hardest thing that any of us have ever done,” said Jeff Kightlinger, a long-time California water manager who is representing the largest and most powerful farm district in this round of negotiations. Even before the current megadrought affecting the region, cities, farms and industries from the mountains of Wyoming to the U.S.-Mexico border were using more water than the river reliably delivered each year. They got by thanks to water stored at the river’s two big reservoirs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. But that storage has been drained so low that, before last year’s wet winter, water managers feared they could be just a year away from losing the ability to physically get water out of one of the two main dams on the river. Mother Nature, and a three-state deal to conserve water over the next three years in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding, have headed off the disaster for now. But crafting new rules to govern the river through a much drier future beginning in 2026 will be exponentially harder. For one thing, the gusher of federal funding from the Inflation Reduction Act that enabled the short-term pact will be gone by then, and there’s no guarantee that new federal dollars will materialize. In fact, there’s already evidence that those dollars are driving up the cost of water conservation deals . And, while some of the river’s most powerful interests — namely, the Imperial Valley farm district in Southern California that controls more water than the states of Arizona and Nevada, combined — were willing to take some pain in a moment of crisis, they’re under enormous pressure from their constituents not to give up much water going forward. The upper river states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico are also reluctant. They aren’t using their full water allocations now, but don’t want their ability to tap that water going forward to be stymied by what they see as flagrant overconsumption by their downstream neighbors. Then there’s Mexico. Under international treaty, the U.S. must deliver a set quantity of water across the border each year. While the Mexican government has agreed to participate in prior drought deals, those agreements are about to expire and it’s unclear what it would take to gain their participation in the pain going forward — especially if former President Donald Trump were to win next November. That could have something to do with why the Biden administration wants a deal done and the legal process to shore it up well underway by the end of 2024. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at asnider@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @AnnElizabeth18 .
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| | A message from bp: Across the US, bp supports more than 275,000 jobs to keep our energy flowing. Like building grid-scale solar in Ohio and producing gas with fewer operational emissions in Texas. See how else bp is investing in America. | | | | | — Jack Smith asks Supreme Court to keep Trump trial on track: Special counsel Jack Smith is urging the Supreme Court to urgently resolve Donald Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution for charges related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election. Without the Supreme Court’s swift intervention, Trump’s trial could be indefinitely delayed, the special counsel warned in a petition to the high court today. That’s because the trial, scheduled to begin March 4, is effectively suspended while Trump pursues his appeal of the trial judge’s ruling rejecting his immunity arguments, Smith wrote. Resolution of the novel legal question is necessary to ensure the case proceeds “promptly,” he argued. — Sheila Jackson Lee files reelection bid for her House seat after losing Houston mayor’s race: Two days after she lost her bid to become Houston’s next mayor, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has filed for reelection to her seat in Congress . Jackson Lee, 73, filed paperwork for reelection today. She enters the race for the safe blue House seat she has held for nearly three decades after state Sen. John Whitmire defeated her in a landslide loss to become the mayor of Houston on Saturday, 64%-36%. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the filing. — US ‘concerned’ about reports that Israel used white phosphorus, Kirby says: The Biden administration is “concerned” about Israel’s reported use of white phosphorus in Lebanon two months ago, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters today. Kirby’s comments follow an analysis by a journalist working for The Washington Post, who found remains of three 155-millimeter artillery rounds fired into Dheira, a small town near the border of Israel. White phosphorus can be used to obscure troop movement as the smoke falls haphazardly over an area. But the chemical substance can also stick to skin and cause potentially fatal burns and respiratory damage. Its use could violate international law if its used intentionally as a weapon against civilians, according to the World Health Organization. — Santos is in plea talks, prosecutors say: Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is in talks to plead guilty to federal charges , prosecutors disclosed in a court filing today, 10 days after the onetime congressman was expelled from the House. “The parties are presently engaged in plea negotiations with the goal of resolving this matter without the need for a trial,” Brooklyn federal prosecutors wrote in the filing, ahead of a court conference planned for Tuesday. Prosecutors added that “[t]he parties wish to continue those negotiations over the next thirty days” before meeting for an additional court conference. Santos, a former first-term Republican from New York who was originally indicted in May and was hit with an updated indictment in October, faces an array of 23 charges, including wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.
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| | Enter the “room where it happens”, where global power players shape policy and politics, with Power Play. POLITICO’s brand-new podcast will host conversations with the leaders and power players shaping the biggest ideas and driving the global conversations, moderated by award-winning journalist Anne McElvoy. Sign up today to be notified of new episodes – click here . | | | | | | | BALLOT WARS — Florida Democrats continue to defend their decision to short-circuit the presidential primary in favor of President Joe Biden. But now they will have to do it in federal court, writes POLITICO. A Tampa lawyer who has run for office previously wants a federal judge to order state election officials to put the name of Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) on the March 19 ballot along with Biden . The lawsuit filed last week against both the Florida Democratic Party and Secretary of State Cord Byrd contends the process used by Democrats — as outlined under Florida law — is unconstitutional. RAMASWAMY THREATENED — A 30-year-old New Hampshire man has been arrested after prosecutors accused him of threatening to kill presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy , reports POLITICO. Tyler Anderson of Dover is charged with making an interstate threat. He appeared in federal court in New Hampshire this afternoon and is being held pending a detention hearing on Thursday. If convicted, Anderson could face up to five years in prison, followed by up to three years of supervised release, plus a fine of up to $250,000, according to federal prosecutors. Anderson threatened to “blow” Ramaswamy’s “brains out” in a text message sent in a response to one from the candidate’s campaign informing him of an event this morning in Portsmouth, according to charging documents. He also wrote that he was “going to kill everyone who attends and then [expletive] their corpses,” documents show.
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President Joe Biden speaks about Bidenomics at CS Wind on Nov. 29, 2023 in Pueblo, Colo. | Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images | GLOBAL HIT — “Bidenomics” is falling flat with American voters. But the rest of the world can’t get enough of it , reports POLITICO. The mammoth climate law that serves as the linchpin of President Joe Biden’s economics program has ignited a new zeal among leaders around the world for the kind of winner-picking, subsidy-flush governing that has been out of fashion in many countries for the past 40 years. The Inflation Reduction Act’s mix of lavish support for clean energy technologies and efforts to box out foreign competitors is also promoting a kind of green patriotism — and even some politicians on the right, at least outside the U.S., say that’s a climate message they can sell. “It’s probably the most impressive piece of legislation in my lifetime,” ex-diplomat Marc-André Blanchard, an executive at Canada’s biggest pension fund, told POLITICO at the sprawling venue of the COP28 U.N. climate talks in Dubai. That may provide little political comfort to Biden, as multiple polls show him losing the economic messaging war to former President Donald Trump, his most likely opponent in next year’s presidential election. Trump has promised to rip out the climate law root and branch. But Biden’s law has struck something at the climate talks in Dubai — either inspiration or a nerve. Trade measures for the first time are an official focal point of the summit’s diplomatic negotiating text, showing just how potent and unavoidable it has become for national governments to debate policies favoring their domestic clean energy industries. After originally billing the law as offering $369 billion in climate and clean energy goodies, the White House is now proudly proclaiming it will spur closer to $700 billion — or even $1 trillion — in green incentives over 10 years. BACK IN BUSINESS — After nine years out of power, Donald Tusk is back — securing the support of the Polish parliament today to head a new government, reports POLITICO EU. The vote was 248 in favor and 201 against, cementing his return nearly two months after a coalition of opposition parties led by the former European Council president delivered a surprising win in the October 15 national election. Earlier today, Poland’s outgoing Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki lost a vote of confidence 266-190 in the lower house of parliament, officially putting an end to the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party’s eight-year stint in power. That paves the way for Tusk to forge a centrist, pro-EU government from his Civic Coalition party, the liberal Poland 2050 party, the conservative agrarian Polish People’s Party and the Left.
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27.5 percent The percentage turnout among Hong Kong’s registered voters in their first district council elections since guidance from Beijing effectively shut out all pro-democracy candidates, setting a record low since the territory was transferred from British to Chinese administration in 1997. In the last election, in 2019 amidst pro-democracy protests, a record 71.2 percent of registered voters participated. |
| | | MUSHROOM MATTERS — It’s looking like mushroom season . From creating vegan leather to using magic mushroom’s psilocybin to treat mental health disorders, people are viewing mushrooms in a new light. The peculiar looking organisms are ingrained into daily life more than you may imagine and that’s why Merlin Sheldrake released a book about mushrooms in 2020. Since then, Sheldrake has worked other forms of media from movies to articles to show society the many wonders of mushrooms — and how we rely on mushrooms every day. In this story for The New Republic, Adam Federman explores one man’s mission to change the public perception of mushrooms in a society increasingly more reliant on them.
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On this date in 1978: A stream of mourners cross the plaza in front of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to pay their respects to former Prime Minister Golda Meir, who died in Jerusalem at age 80 three days prior. | Aris Saris/AP | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here .
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