And her warning should get the attention of anyone who depends on the Colorado River.
A Crisis That Reaches Far Beyond California
California is one of seven states tied to the Colorado River system. The others are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada.
The problem, Hageman argues, is simple: when one state faces increasing pressure to supply its cities and industries, the effects can eventually be felt throughout the entire river basin.
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Hageman highlighted the disconnect between communities upstream and the massive demands coming from population centers farther downstream.
“Pinedale, Wyoming, may be a long way removed from Southern California,” Hageman said, “but when there are calls on the river and when there are demands that we reduce the amount of water that we are able to use in order to meet a demand downstream, that isn’t fair.”
That frustration is rooted in a much larger problem.
The Colorado River Compact, signed in 1922, divided the river’s water among the Upper and Lower Basin states. But the agreement was based on estimates from an unusually wet period, meaning the river system was effectively promised to deliver more water than it could reliably provide over the long term.
A century later, the stakes are dramatically higher.
What was once a regional water-sharing arrangement now supports tens of millions of people, along with enormous agricultural operations and major metropolitan areas.
Every decision about how that water is distributed carries consequences.
And when supplies tighten, the fight over who must cut back becomes increasingly difficult.
California Agriculture Caught in the Middle
California remains one of the nation’s most important agricultural producers. Farms in the state supply Americans with an enormous range of fruits, vegetables, and other products.
But Hageman argues that California’s agricultural sector has increasingly been squeezed by competing demands for water.
“California could grow almost all the food we need in the United States,” Hageman said, “but they’ve really decimated their Ag industry because they’ve taken irrigation water away from their Ag industry to try to meet municipal demand and industrial demand elsewhere.”
The congresswoman’s broader argument is that America should be strengthening domestic food production, not allowing vital farmland to become increasingly dependent on water policies driven by political and environmental battles.
That concern takes on even greater significance as Americans face questions about food prices, supply chains, and the nation’s dependence on foreign agricultural production.
Water, in other words, is not merely a California issue.
It is an economic issue.
It is an agricultural issue.
And increasingly, it is a national security issue.
Environmental Battles and Aging Infrastructure
Critics of California’s water policies have long argued that the state failed to build enough storage and modern infrastructure while its population and water needs continued to grow.
Hageman also took aim at environmental activists who oppose certain large-scale water projects.
Groups such as the Sierra Club have challenged desalination and other major development proposals, while organizations including Tell the Dam Truth have advocated against existing dams.
Supporters of those groups argue that such projects can create significant environmental consequences. Hageman, however, was far less diplomatic in describing what she sees as an ideological approach to water policy.
“They’re very backwards people. I kind of look at them like flat-Earthers.”
Meanwhile, the condition of California’s existing infrastructure remains a major concern.
Many of the state’s dams are decades old, while aging canals, aqueducts, and other facilities face ongoing maintenance and capacity challenges.
The result is a system that critics say has struggled to keep pace with California’s changing needs.
And now, pressure on the Colorado River is forcing all seven basin states to confront the consequences.
Trump Administration Moves as States Face Hard Choices
With negotiations over the river’s future growing increasingly contentious, the Trump administration moved to impose major reductions on Lower Basin states.
Under the decision described in the original report, California faces a reduction of 440,000 acre-feet, Arizona 760,000 acre-feet, and Nevada 50,000 acre-feet over the next two years.
The cuts underscore just how serious the situation has become.
For years, the seven states have faced pressure to reach a new agreement governing how the river’s water will be divided. With the current framework approaching its expiration at the end of 2026, negotiations have become increasingly urgent.
The states had time to find a solution.
Instead, disagreements continued.
Now the federal government has stepped into a dispute that affects millions of Americans and some of the country’s most productive agricultural land.
Newsom has described the situation as requiring action while also portraying the current measures as temporary.
But Hageman’s criticism points to a deeper question: Why was California allowed to reach this point without modernizing enough of the infrastructure needed to prepare for the future?
The Fight Is About More Than Water
At the heart of the dispute is a much bigger debate over America’s food supply and national priorities.
Hageman argues that the United States should be doing everything possible to protect domestic agriculture.
The country has fertile land.
It has farmers capable of producing enormous quantities of food.
And, in many regions, it has access to the water necessary to support that production.
But those resources are limited.
When infrastructure falls behind, populations grow, and political battles delay major projects, the burden does not simply disappear.
Someone has to absorb the cuts.
And increasingly, Western farmers and rural communities fear they could be the ones left paying the price.
California’s long-term water projects may eventually provide additional capacity. But major infrastructure takes years to complete.
That means the Colorado River crisis is not a distant problem waiting for a future generation.
It is happening now.
And as Hageman’s warning makes clear, the decisions made in California may not stop at California’s borders.
For farmers, ranchers, and families throughout the West, the battle over water is becoming a battle over who gets to keep producing, who gets forced to cut back, and whether common-sense infrastructure can finally take priority over years of political delay and ideological gridlock.
