When Ted Cooke, the former general manager of the Central Arizona Project, was nominated as the next commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in June, Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton tweeted that his “decades of expertise” in water policy would be valuable in the tough discussions to form new management guidelines for the Colorado River. On Sept. 16, amid apparent complaints from states on the upper Colorado, the Trump administration abruptly withdrew Cooke’s nomination. … Cooke told The Arizona Republic that the White House told him the decision was due to “paperwork problems” with his vetting documents. Cooke called that bogus.