PHOENIX — Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Lake Mead on Monday as part of the Biden Administration's push to highlight the climate change proposals in two pieces of infrastructure legislation that are stalled in Congress.
According to a White House official, Harris will visit the Nevada side of Lake Mead at noon Monday for a tour and briefing, followed by a statement on what the Administration calls "the largest investment in climate resilience in U.S. history."
The Build Back Better legislation in the House and the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate have been held up by opposition from two Democratic senators -- Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia's Joe Manchin.
Sinema was a lead negotiator of the bipartisan Senate bill.
Democratic leadership has given itself an Oct. 31 deadline to pass the legislation and send it to President Joe Biden for his signature.
Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, has been the focus of urgent concern among the Western states that rely on its water supply.
This year the reservoir hit its lowest level since its creation almost 80 years ago, the result of a historic megadrought combined with increasing demand in the booming West.
An agreement among several Western states forced drastic cuts in Arizona's water allotment from Lake Mead. Agriculture interests will absorb the brunt of those cuts.
Five-year projections indicate Lake Mead's waters levels will continue to drop.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says there's a chance that the power plant on adjacent Lake Powell won't be able to generate hydropower within the next two years.
The legislation in Congress would spend more than $8 billion to help the West prepare for droughts. More than half of the money would be used to upgrade aging infrastructure and for rural water projects.
Harris will be joined at Lake Mead by the three Democratic members of Nevada's congressional delegation - Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, according to the White House official. There are no Arizona officeholders listed on her itinerary.
Harris, a former U.S. senator from California, sponsored several pieces of legislation in the Senate that are now part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
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