DENVER - Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced the appointment of Rebecca Mitchell, the State of Colorado’s Commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission, as Director of Compact Negotiations of the Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC).
As IBCC Director, Commissioner Mitchell will directly link input from the Basin Roundtables and IBCC to the interstate Colorado River negotiations. She will also continue to engage with the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) through bimonthly IBCC Director’s Reports and Colorado River updates at CWCB meetings.
In this role, Commissioner Mitchell will chair the IBCC, a 27-member committee that includes representatives from the nine Basin Roundtables, Colorado Senate and House Agriculture Committee representatives, and six Governor appointees from geographically diverse parts of the state.
Commissioner Mitchell’s new role will strengthen and integrate water policy discussions happening across the state, the Colorado River Basin, and the American West.
“I am grateful for the opportunity,” said Commissioner Rebecca Mitchell. “As Colorado’s representative on Colorado River matters, this will provide a clear conduit for input and communication. It’s an important link for Coloradans—and it’s an important link for me, so I can continue to represent the entire state on the interstate stage.”
The Department of Natural Resources Executive Director, Dan Gibbs, will step down as the current IBCC Director. “Becky will be an amazing IBCC Director,” Director Gibbs said. “I am confident that she will bring a relationship-oriented approach to the IBCC just as she did as CWCB Director, while also bringing the IBCC’s feedback into our interstate Colorado River discussions.”
The IBCC was created in 2005 as directed by the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act. Since then, the IBCC has provided an important, diverse, and balanced forum for policy input across Colorado and has helped shape numerous state planning initiatives through a focused discourse on the major policy challenges within and across the state and the nine Basin Roundtables. Its members provide expertise in water-related environmental, recreational, local governmental, industrial, and agricultural policy matters and it serves as a venue for consensus-building.
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