Water markets are broken primarily because of water rights, some of which were allocated centuries ago via local and regional contracts. They are nearly impossible to untangle, and state governments are required by law to honor them.
Water rights were not allocated centuries ago. All water managements systems (more or less) in place when the US took control of the southwest were overridden and replaced by US-style private property rights, a totally different system than exists east of the 100th parallel/the Mississippi. Consequently, they date back at most 1.5 centuries, and in general, less than that.
The main agreement affecting the SW today is the Colorado River Compact, which dates back only the 1930s/40s. It is far, far from ancient history, and was demonstrably created in a state of willful ignorance of actual precipitation patterns in the region.
Can you walk me through how the Federal Government could use eminent domain to untangle the water rights? What exactly is the Government going to expropriate as part of eminent domain? There are seven states that depend on the water from the Colorado River.
> Can you walk me through how the Federal Government could use eminent domain to untangle the water rights?
Eminent domaining the water?
The federal government at the highest level(SCOTUS) have no problem using eminent domain for things as frivolous as an unfinanced mall with no strings attached for the _private_ developer. They certainly wouldn't pause to eminent domain this if they cared.
Unfortunately these are regions of the country that are populated by large groups of people who continually elect local politicians who will blame any convenient boogeyman on their problems. Look at this in 2021 their AG sued the Biden government over not doing enough to stop pollution causing climate change because his administration didn’t crack down on _immigrants_[1].
What exactly is political leadership supposed to do here? Kowtow to the demands that will cost money and absolutely not solve the problem? Or ignore it until the people living with the issue decide to accept that it’s real rather than blaming whatever let’s them continue their lifestyle without any change?
You didn't actually answer my question. It sounds like you might be confused on what eminent domain is. Eminent domain provides the Federal government with the power to take private property and convert it into public use. There is no single piece of land here. This is not only not land it's literally water that flows across the land. Further it's not private property. The Colorado River basin covers 250,000 square is almost 1,400 miles long. Not only do seven states depend on it but Mexico also has rights to it under The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944. To compare it to appropriating land for a mall is absurd.
You’re ignoring that they have the power to do so, they just don’t have the will. We have built mega projects before and taken land for it. This would be no different
I'm not ignoring anything. Eminent domain is not at all applicable here. You seem to be ignoring that eminent domain applies to private land in order to make it available for public use. The land involved is already public, it belongs to the states. Honestly you really don't seem to have much of any meaningful argument or explanation other than repeatedly using the phrase "eminent domain" incorrectly.
That is incorrect. The federal government can exercise eminent domain against the states, and that is not an old idea. I found it last referenced in a 2021 opinion authored by Roberts[1]
The pertinent text is
>Early cases also reflected the understanding that state property was not immune from the exercise of delegated federal eminent domain power. See Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., 32 F. 9 (Bradley, Cir. J.). The contrary position—that a federal delegatee could not condemn a State’s land without the State’s consent—would give rise to the “dilemma of requiring the consent of the state” in virtually every infrastructure project authorized by the Federal Government.
It literally calls out that major infrastructure projects would not have been feasible without this power
