NGA Selects Four States to Address Resource Use Efficiencies Through the Water-Energy Nexus

The National Governors Association (NGA) competitively selected four states – Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina and Washington – to participate in a Learning Lab examining cross-cutting water and energy policy approaches to generate resource use efficiencies, cost savings and water affordability, with special emphasis on rural areas. Over 2 ½ days, state teams will learn about best practices, visit a site that showcases replicable water and energy conservation measures, and create action plans to implement when they return to their states.

Energy and water are critical resources often regulated separately, but each of these intertwined resources is heavily utilized in the production, treatment, delivery and management of the other. Many governors are recognizing the need for improved resource management, setting goals for drought and climate resilience, emissions and water use reductions, and clean energy adoption. Working together, governors’ offices and state energy and water agencies can overcome regulatory barriers, reach a broad set of stakeholders, and leverage technical and financial resources to drive the implementation of best practices to reduce customer costs, preserve limited resources, and affordably realize necessary innovations.

The selected states will learn from two co-hosts – Arizona and Wisconsin – that have displayed leadership effectively addressing the nexus through creative multi-agency, multi-modal approaches. The four learner states will draw from the best practices they learn as they establish their own state action plans.

Representatives from each of the state teams will join NGA, state experts from Arizona and Wisconsin, and other issue experts March 31- April 2, 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona.