The high-stakes brawl over the drought-stricken Colorado River comes to Capitol Hill this week. The Trump administration’s top Western water official is set to appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday as the Interior Department is preparing to wrest control of the waterway later this summer. The department already invoked emergency authorities in April when it became clear that the river would see the lowest flows on record this summer, threatening the ability to produce hydropower and release water out of one of the country’s largest reservoirs, Lake Powell. … Scott Cameron, Interior’s acting Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, last week said the department plans to release a draft plan for operating the waterway unilaterally in the “mid-to-late summer.”

Other Colorado River management news:

• Aspen Journalism (Colo.): Feds say new Colorado River plan will be short-term
• The Denver Gazette (Colo.): With no 7-state deal, the Department of the Interior turns to a 10-year Colorado River strategy
• Colorado Public Radio: Colorado and Nevada negotiators throw cold water on parts of federal plan to manage Colorado River
• Arizona Republic (Phoenix): Colorado River states suggest mediation as water supplies near crisis
• KJZZ (Phoenix): ‘We’ve been called failures’: Colorado River negotiators address stalled talks
• Las Vegas Review-Journal: Lake Mead is barreling faster than ever toward ‘system crash,’ top experts say
• Inside Climate News: Feds will soon impose new framework on Colorado River if states can’t agree how to manage it
• KUNC (Greeley, Colo.): It’s not all doom and gloom, and 4 other things we learned at CU Boulder’s Colorado River gathering