Kotek vows to revive stricter scrutiny of water transfers

Published 8:31 am Wednesday, July 9, 2025

SALEM — The failure of a bill imposing environmental reviews on certain Oregon water rights transfers has not dissuaded Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek from pursuing similar legislation again.

Senate Bill 1153, which would have subjected transfers to stricter regulations, died in committee despite being a priority of Kotek’s in the 2025 legislative session.

Kotek said she doesn’t “want to speculate on what happened at the end,” but vowed to “bring it back and keep working on it.”

“Despite the failure of the bill getting done this session, we do need to stay on this topic. We have to manage our water differently. We have to identify ways to update our water rights transfer process,” she said during a recent roundtable interview.

Agriculture organizations mounted a vigorous campaign against the bill this year, even after its scope was scaled back following months of negotiations.

Environmental organizations claimed that current Oregon water law contains a “loophole” for transfers, as they’re not subject to as much regulatory scrutiny as new water rights applications.

For example, proponents of SB 1153 claim that transferring a water right upstream reduces streamflows in the intervening stretch of river, potentially harming fish and other aquatic species.

However, farm groups argued that saddling transfers with new bureaucratic requirements would inevitably lead to more litigation over the issue, paralyzing one of the state’s last flexible water management tools.

Critics of SB 1153 said there was no evidence the current transfer rules have caused any environmental problems and alleged that supporters simply didn’t make the case for its necessity.

Proponents countered that the risks were exaggerated and blamed its failure on Republicans threatening to walk out over the proposal, which would have denied the Legislature the quorum needed to pass other bills.

Without rehashing the reasons for why the bill faltered, Kotek said SB 1153 represented “an important next step that we needed to take.”

“All I know is: The bill didn’t pass, the issue is still important. I am going to continue to push on this topic and get everybody around the table and say, ‘OK, let’s keep working on it.’”

Regarding the possibility of revising the proposal in the future, Kotek said she considered the water transfer provisions “solid” but that discussions about “adjustments” are bound to occur.

“I hope I hear from folks who had concerns about the bill, how they would want it to be different,” she said. “I don’t think we can be in the situation where we just say ‘no’ anymore.”

Aside from the water transfers bill, Kotek advocated for strengthening groundwater protections as a priority this year under Senate Bill 1154.

“I believe I am taking on big issues and engaging all different perspectives on how to secure the future of our water management,” she said.

Though that legislation did pass this year, the final version came under fire from some environmental groups who felt it was overly diluted.

The bill aims to bolster the ability of state agencies to respond to aquifer pollution before it reaches a critical stage, but an amendment to SB 1154 stripped water regulators of new authorities they would have gained under the original version.

Those changes prompted some early environmental supporters to rescind their endorsement, but the amendment also convinced farm groups to shift their position on the bill to neutral, clearing the way for its approval.

Kotek said she thinks the version that passed remains a “good bill” that is “going to really improve our ability to respond” in a “collaborative and clear fashion.”

“I don’t think that was a watered-down bill,” she said. “That was a sincere and I think comprehensive approach to upgrade a set of statutes that hadn’t been touched in a long time.”