PHOENIX — Arizona’s incoming Democratic legislative majority plans to bring back a sweeping rural groundwater bill that never got a hearing under Republican control, ABC15 reported.
Senate President-elect Priya Sundareshan proposed the Rural Groundwater Management Act in January 2025. It would have let rural communities create their own water management programs and set conservation goals, but the bill died without a committee hearing.
With Gov. Katie Hobbs starting a second term and Democrats controlling both chambers in January, Sundareshan said that bill will be the starting point. “At the state legislative level, we can and must secure our groundwater and put more groundwater protections into place,” she told reporters Tuesday.
She said lawmakers will review how recent actions have worked, including the Hobbs administration’s designation of the state’s eighth Active Management Area in the Ranegras Plain in La Paz and Yuma counties, before deciding on changes.
Sundareshan also said the Legislature will drop its lawsuit over a Hobbs program that lets developers facing 100-year water supply limits offset their groundwater use. “It rankled within me that the state Legislature was suing the state over water issues,” she said.
State Sen. Analise Ortiz told ABC15 the state must get serious about groundwater management. “Water should have never been partisan,” she said. “Times are going to change.”
The new Legislature convenes in January.
Sources: ABC15. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using data from Abdelmohsen, K., et al. (2025), bound / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
