In January 2023, Congress passed the Colorado River Indian Tribes Water Resiliency Act, authorizing the Colorado River Indian Tribes to lease part of its Colorado River water allocation to off-reservation users. The law grants the Colorado River Indian Tribes some of the rights that are already enjoyed by private water users, and creates an important source of revenue for the tribal government. In its broader context, however, the Act only further complicates the legal situation of tribal water leasing in the Colorado basin. Rights vary dramatically from tribe to tribe, with a patchwork system of exemptions to the general prohibition on tribal water leasing resulting in an uneven and fundamentally unfair system. Some tribes are effectively able to lease water at will; others are entirely prohibited from doing so; and still others are limited, by law or by settlement, to leasing only from certain bodies of water or to certain other water users.

This Comment argues that Congress should consider uniform legislation to cut through this regulatory thicket, authorizing all basin tribes to lease their water rights to off-reservation users. Taking as its model the recent Colorado River Indian Tribes Water Resiliency Act, which passed with wide widespread bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, this Comment argues that similar legislation could garner support from municipal water users and environmental groups that have been skeptical of previous efforts to expand tribal water leasing. It concludes by discussing remaining obstacles to this proposal and its prospects for success in a future Congress.