Attorney General Raúl Labrador secured a significant victory for Idaho water rights against federal claims of unconstitutionality in the United States v. Idaho. U.S. District Court Judge David Nye rejected the Department of Justice’s attempt to block Idaho ranchers from seeking forfeiture of stockwater rights on public lands that the United States is not using. This ruling establishes that the federal government is treated no differently than any other water user which must productively use water rights within five years or face forfeiture, per Idaho law.
This ruling also confirms the decrees issued in Idaho’s lengthy Snake River Basin Adjudication are what define the United States’ water rights, not arguments the Administration makes to a federal court years later. The Snake River Basin Adjudication was a legal and administrative process that began in 1987 to determine water rights between the State of Idaho, the Department of the Interior, and the Nez Perce Tribe. The final decree was signed in 2014 and provided legal certainty for recognized water rights, improved water management, environmental protections, and economic stability for users in the region.
“This is a big win for Idaho ranchers who are tired of the federal government having two sets of rules,” said Attorney General Labrador. “Water is life here in Idaho, and our laws protect the viability of grazing livestock and other agriculture. The State of Idaho spent millions of dollars and over twenty years to have water rights claimed under Idaho law—including those claimed by the United States—conclusively finalized in the Snake River Basin Adjudication. We defend those water right decrees and Idaho water laws for the very survival of our state.”
This challenge to Idaho’s laws culminated in 2022 when the Justice Department sued to block application of Idaho’s forfeiture laws to any stockwater rights the United States had acquired, under Idaho law, for watering livestock on millions of acres of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands. This case raised a question left unresolved by a 2007 Idaho Supreme Court decision where the Court held that a rancher could establish a water right on federal land if the rancher’s livestock were drinking the water. The Court clarified the federal agency simply managing the public lands for grazing was not considered a “beneficial use” of the water as required.
Following the Idaho Supreme Court’s decision, the Idaho Legislature enacted a series of statutes, including one that provided a forfeiture process for all stockwater rights—including those owned by the federal government. These statutory changes triggered a federal constitutional challenge by the Department of Justice, arguing Idaho’s laws exceeded the authority granted by the Court’s ruling. Those statutes pertaining to stockwater forfeiture were upheld. While the Court enjoined three other statutes on grounds that they discriminate against the United States, those statutes have nothing to do with water right forfeiture, and have never been applied to the United States, as the Court itself recognized.
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