Commissioner
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Commissioner Touton returned to the Department of the Interior with the Biden-Harris Administration and served as Reclamation’s Deputy Commissioner since January 2021.
Prior to her appointment as Deputy Commissioner, she served as Professional Staff for the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. She was the staff lead on the resiliency provisions enacted as part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2020.
Commissioner Touton’s congressional experience also includes serving as Professional Staff for Interior’s authorization committees – the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee. She also served as Interior’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science under the Obama administration.
She is only the second U.S. Senate-confirmed female commissioner in Reclamation’s 119-year history and the first Filipino-American, confirmed by the Senate, to lead a bureau in the Department of the Interior.
Commissioner Touton earned a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University and Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The Bureau of Reclamation is a contemporary water management agency and the largest wholesale provider of water in the country. It brings water to more than 31 million people and provides one out of five Western farmers with irrigation water for farmland that produces much of the nation's produce. Reclamation is also the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the country.
Sponsored Luncheon & Keynote Address: Enhancing Water Resilience in the American West
Thursday, May 25, 2023
1:00 PM – 1:30 PM PDT