Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) is asking the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe and other entities to lower the cost of a major water rights settlement.

The price tag for the settlement has been placed at around $800 million. Kyl says that is too high to pass Congress this year, before his retirement.

"He's a powerful, powerful figure, and for him to have agreed to something in the fall of 2010 and to have to tell the (Hopi) Tribe and the (Navajo) Nation the amount is too high, that says the political landscape has profoundly changed," Robert Glennon, a law professor at Arizona State University, told the Associated Press.

Kyl has sponsored several tribal water rights settlements.

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Ariz. senator asks water rights negotiators to lower cost of deal that settles Navajo claims (AP 5/16)