Many proposals to increase surface water storage in western states bog down in environmental regulation, slow-moving bureaucracies, and litigation, witnesses and several members of Congress said Feb. 7. These states are already struggling with periodic droughts and growing demands for water, participants said at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. The hearing provided a forum for criticism of two laws most often associated with regulatory barriers and lawsuits-the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. The hearing also served as a forum for discussion of project financing challenges, a subject intertwined with regulation because of the difficulty of obtaining financing for uncertain projects facing many years of regulatory analysis.
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