The Senate Budget Committee’s 19th hearing linking climate change to economic instability will focus on the tolls of widespread droughts and water crises.
It’s a topic that could resonate with committee lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, particularly those who hail from agriculture-heavy states where crop yields are under near-constant threat due to more arid conditions — committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), for instance.
It also could strike a chord with lawmakers from the West, where the Colorado River water shortage is particularly severe — from Utah Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee to Democratic Sens. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Alex Padilla of California.
Witnesses who have been invited to testify include Tanya Trujillo, New Mexico’s deputy state engineer and the water policy adviser to Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Adel Hagekhalil, general manager and CEO of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
