The Trump Administration’s nominee to run the Bureau of Reclamation is withdrawing from the process. Ted Cooke, a longtime water manager in Arizona, said he was asked to step back by the White House.

Cooke had been nominated to serve as commissioner of the federal agency that oversees the Colorado River. He faced pushback from some politicians and water officials who worried that he might bring bias into the position.

“I was a political casualty,” Cooke told KUNC on Wednesday.

The seven states that use the Colorado River are stuck in tense talks about how to share its water in the future. They are split into two camps : the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada.

• ICN Weekly Saturdays Our #1 newsletter

See Full Page