Draft bill would extend water-court statutory eligibility into 2038; stakeholders generally support continuation

Staff explained PD1-WC, a draft bill to amend session law termination dates affecting the water court so eligibility for the state special revenue account and associated enabling statutes would extend through 2038 (effective 07/01/2027). Director-level and stakeholder testimony emphasized that the draft preserves the mechanism that makes the water court eligible for appropriations but does not itself appropriate funds; funding continues to flow via the biennial budget (HB2).

Clayton Elliott, representing Montana Charter Limited, clarified the draft does not automatically appropriate ten years of funding; it preserves the eligibility of the state special revenue account for up to five biennia so the legislature can continue to appropriate money in HB2 each session. Jocelyn Cahill of the Senior Ag Water Rights Alliance supported the water court's work but suggested a five-year review might be adequate. Karli Johnson of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation urged a 10-year horizon so the program can finish its work.

Staff said the substantive change is amending dates in statutory termination language and removing time-limited benchmark subsections that DNRC and the court have met; the draft would let some session-law benchmarking provisions expire because their targets were achieved in earlier years.

No committee vote on PD1-WC occurred at the meeting; members heard public support for continuing the statutory eligibility mechanism, and DNRC confirmed it had met reexamination benchmarks (reexamined roughly 85,000 claims through March 19, 2025).