Rep. Crane Claims Leadership in Water Wars as House Challenger Turns Up Heat

District 2 Rep. Eli Crane, a Republican, issued statements on Friday expressing his fervent support for H.R. 9497, the Water Resources Development Act, which the House of Representatives passed on September 16 by a vote of 415-9. Crane described the bill’s passage as a victory for rural Arizona, citing provisions that will add and expand facilities for water treatment and flood mitigation and its strengthening of what he called the state’s “proactive approach to water management.” Crane singled out authorization for a new flood control project in Pinal County as particularly important, and praised his own record of having helped secure funding for similar projects in other rural parts of the state.

In a state where water is the most precious commodity of all, Crane has eagerly presented himself to voters as a champion of shrewd water management who can help steer state out of its current crisis.

But not everyone buys it. Crane’s District 2 challenger, Democrat Jonathan Nez, who has served as president of the Navajo Nation, has blasted Crane for having engaged in “performative stunts” aimed at persuading voters that he grasps the dynamics of the water emergency, when his lack of expertise stands to make it direr.

Nez, who hopes to flip District 2 from red to blue on November 3, criticized Crane for posing in August for a photo-op right next to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum at Theodore Roosevelt Dam, calling it a “pathetic social media stunt” and charging that Crane lacks the courage to take the lead on water procurement and management. Burgum has ordered Arizona to curb its use of water from the Colorado River by 30 percent, a target that Nez called “unsustainable.” Nez’s implication is that anyone who would pose with Burgum before a camera has made a Faustian bargain rendering any claims to champion Arizona’s rural counties, at a time of growing water scarcity, dubious at best and repellent at worst.

“Residents are sounding the alarm that the federal government is ‘threatening to shut down the Southwest,’ yet Crane continues to offer Arizonans little more than social media posts and empty political theater after years of doing nothing but making our water crisis worse,” the statement from Nez’s campaign alleged.

Notwithstanding Nez’s portrayal of the District 2 incumbent as a sunshine soldier and an opportunist, Crane has taken the lead on water since long before the current House race got into high gear. In October 2025, Crane reached across the aisleto work with Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar on a letter to National Park Service Acting Director Jessica Bowron, making a case for approval of a $28.36 million funding package, pursuant to the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), for the upgrading of water infrastructure under the management of Page Utility Enterprises. They pointed out that the existing system is over six decades old and relies on a 12-inch intake pipe ill suited to peak seasonal use.

“Additionally, the Dragon Bravo and White Sage fires have burned thousands of acres in northern Arizona, including critical infrastructure,” said a statement from Crane’s office. “Combined with longstanding drought conditions, the region now faces immense pressure to find a long-term solution.”

The same statement acknowledged that GAOA had hit its initial five-year funding limit, but requested the allocation of funds under the act if there was still any money left unspent. With additional cash, the authors of the letter envisioned funding for a new water intake and pump station, a new 18-inch pipeline, and upgraded water delivery of 6.6 million gallons per day.

Though they have yet to bear fruit, Crane’s efforts on that front makes Nez’s claim, in a recent Instagram clip, that Crane “refuses to bring water projects to rural Arizona,” look slightly curious. In the same clip, Nez alleged that Crane “has given tax breaks to data centers that drain water supplies.”

It is not surprising that the water issue has come to dominate House races in Arizona this season or that candidates have sought to gain advantage by portraying their opponents as inept with regard to water management, in league with aloof federal forces that care little about local needs and concerns, or both. The situation this year has been bad, and next year could be worse, according to Dr. Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center.

“Should next year’s [Colorado River] runoff be anywhere close to as low as the 2026 runoff, we may see additional reductions imposed,” Megdal told Arizona Globe. “We are in a period of high uncertainty. The system’s low overall storage level means that we have very little cushion or buffer in terms of water supplies,” she observed. “This is very different from the turn of the century, which more or less marks the start of our long-term drought (or mega-drought), when the system was just about full.”

To explain how grave the current impasse looks, and the difficulty of reconciling Upper Basin and Lower Basin needs, Megdal resorted to an analogy. “We’ve used up our savings account and must now divide up a river system producing much less water annually than before the turn of the century.”

Acknowledging that legal action is underway in the Lower Basin—in New Mexico’s lawsuit challenging federal restrictions on water allocations to the region—Megdal noted the limited power of courts and lawyers to ameliorate the shortfall. “The courts do not create new water supplies,” she said. “A Colorado River water delivery system must be in place while any court cases wind their way through the legal system.”

At present, the effort to develop a more sustainable system has three basic prongs, Megdal shared. They involve lowering water use through sensible conservation, making more abundant use of rainwater, stormwater, and reclaimed water, and finding new supplies.

Unfortunately, Megdal continued, the August 21, 2026, Record of Decision (ROD) that hit Arizona, Nevada, and California with mandatory reductions failed to say whether there will be federal funding to reward voluntary reductions in use of water from the Colorado River. It does not point the way toward achieving 700,000 acre-feet of reductions beyond the 300,000 specified in the ROD, she said. “I hear there are discussions regarding federal funding, but I have not seen anything written about this.”