LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Southern Nevada on Monday and is scheduled to talk about climate change and investing in climate resilience.
White House communications report the vice president is planning to be at Lake Mead at around noon. Harris is scheduled to participate in a tour, receive a briefing, and deliver remarks making the case for the largest investment in climate resilience in U.S. history through passing the Build Back Better Agenda and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.
Watch: Vice President Kamala Harris touring Lake Mead
Harris is expected to emphasize that water shortages have a ripple effect on U.S. farmers, food supply, and economy – and that climate change will continue to make extreme weather including droughts and heat more frequent, costly, and harmful, according to the White House communications team.
And that Congress must pass the Build Back Better Agenda and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal bills, to address drought resilience and the climate crisis, and to create millions of good jobs building and repairing water infrastructure, restoring watersheds and wetlands, and improving water efficiency and conservation.
Harris will receive a briefing on the situation from officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. National Park Service, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and Clark County Parks and Recreation. She will also be joined by Rep. Dina Titus, Rep. Susie Lee, and Rep. Steven Horsford, according to White House communications.
The White House team says Lake Mead provides water to 25 million people in Nevada, Arizona, California, and Mexico. Yet this year, due to a climate change-fueled drought, Lake Mead hit its lowest level since the lake was created with the damming of the Colorado River in 1935.
Currently, over 2.7 million Nevadans are living in drought and 95% of the state is in severe to exceptional drought conditions, according to the White House.
Previously, Harris has authored multiple pieces of legislation to address the western water crisis and wildfires that are exacerbated by worsening drought conditions, according to the White House. And investments to make U.S. infrastructure more resilient are a key piece of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and the Build Back Better Agenda.
