John McCain stirred up a tizzy last week with a comment about a Colorado River compact that allocates water among seven Western states. The compact “needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties,” McCain told Colorado’s Pueblo Chieftain. “I think that there’s a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, renegotiate, certainly adjust to the new realities of high growth, of greater demands on a scarcer resource.” Coloradans on both sides of the aisle objected, taking McCain to mean that he favors diverting water away from upper basin states, including Colorado, to give to lower basin states, including McCain’s home state of Arizona. They also pointed out the contract was just renegotiated in December. McCain said this week that his comment was “mistakenly construed as a call to rescind” the compact. Colorado Democrats, however, remain unimpressed. “The word ‘renegotiate’ does not have double meaning,” says Gov. Bill Ritter, adding that McCain’s statement “just showed to me either a naïveté or even a hostility toward water usage in Colorado.”
