Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act of 2025

# Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act of 2025 - Plain Language Summary This bill would modify a 2010 water rights agreement between the Crow Tribe of Montana and the state of Montana. The original 2010 settlement gave the federal government authority to fund and build two major water projects on the Crow Reservation: improvements to an existing irrigation system (the Crow Irrigation Project) and a new municipal and industrial water system for the tribe.

The new bill primarily makes technical updates to that agreement, including changing how the water projects are referred to and creating a dedicated interest-bearing account (called the Crow CIP Implementation Account) to hold and manage federal funding for continuing rehabilitation work on the irrigation project. The bill directly affects the Crow Tribe of Montana, which would benefit from these water infrastructure improvements, as well as the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency responsible for implementing the projects. The changes are largely administrative and financial in nature—organizing how money flows and how projects are classified—rather than fundamentally altering the tribe's water rights or the scope of the original settlement. **Current Status:** The bill was introduced by Representative Troy Downing (R-MT) and is currently in committee, meaning it has not yet been debated or voted on by the full House of Representatives.