Stanislaus River Native Anadromous Fish Improvement Act

Mr. Chairman, California's drought is nature's fault, but our failure to prepare for it is our fault.

In California, the ruling Democrats have not only obstructed the construction of new dams for the past 35 years but they have also actively sought to tear down existing ones. They have substituted conservation for desperately needed storage, and now that we face drought, we find that our few reservoirs are empty, and our conservation options are already exhausted.

Worse, in the first years of this drought, 1.6 million acre-feet of water was dumped into the Pacific Ocean for the care and amusement of the delta smelt. Mr. Chairman, 800,000 acre-feet--enough for 4 million Californians--was deliberately drained from our now empty reservoirs just several months ago, knowing that that water was desperately needed to support the threatened human population. Part of that water was taken from Central Valley farmers, who now face economic extinction. This bill corrects these tragic policies.

It is true, we cannot make it rain, but we can take measures to stop this lunacy, increase storage capacity, reinforce existing water rights, and ensure that we never again must face a crisis of this magnitude.

This bill allows for the expansion of Lake McClure by 70,000 acre- feet. It gives local water agencies the ability to store additional water at New Melones. It sets deadlines for additional storage. It authorizes local water districts to partner with the Federal Government to expedite expansion of existing reservoirs and construction of new ones, and it reverses

the policies that put the delta smelt ahead of the needs of thousands of farmworkers and millions of consumers.

Now, the people responsible for these policies say that this steals water from northern California. It does not. This is only water that would otherwise be lost to the Pacific Ocean. This bill restores the bipartisan Bay Delta Accord that guarantees the delta the water that it needs and grants a portion of any excess to the Central Valley. This historic accord was broken when Central Valley water was expropriated for the delta smelt. This bill restores that accord while making provisions to increase the overall supply.

The other outlandish charge is that this measure overrides State water rights. It does exactly the opposite. It specifically protects State water rights against infringement by any bureaucracy--local, State, or Federal.

We have listened to the environmental left for 40 years, and this is where it has gotten us. It is time to reject these voices and return to the commonsense and proven policies of abundance that produced the prosperity that we once enjoyed.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment was rejected on a bipartisan vote of 174-250 when the gentlelady introduced it in 2012, and it deserves a similar fate on the floor today. Let's be clear about what it does.

It singles out Central Valley Project participants who pay their Federal loans off early to a punitive surtax that is imposed on no other Bureau of Reclamation project in the United States. Their surtaxes will be passed on to consumers through higher prices. Now, the Central Valley Project was already singled out for a punitive tax-- about $50 million annually--by Congress in 1992 to fund an array of environmental slush funds.

I believe that beneficiaries should pay the cost of water projects but that they should pay only the costs of those projects and no more. These are not cash cows for the Federal Government to milk until they are dry. When the left speaks of corporate farms, they leave out the fact that virtually every family farm is incorporated, and that is who we would be singling out for this special tax. That tax is then paid in only one of two ways: by employees through lower wages or by consumers through higher prices.

I have a modest suggestion. Perhaps we should start putting people back to work rather than running them out of business.

I have often criticized the gentlelady and her colleagues for policies that have created the conditions that indirectly send water prices through the roof, but this proposal does so quite directly and dramatically. I think that is why so many of her colleagues on the Democratic side abandoned her 2 years ago and why they would be well advised to do so again.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, it ought to be obvious to everyone that, once you have paid off a loan, you don't keep paying interest on that loan. Why? Because you have already paid it off. That is what every project managed by the Bureau of Reclamation does. When they are given permission to prepay the loan--to pay off the loan just the way you would pay off your home loan early--they no longer are charged interest for it.

The gentlelady would single out the Central Valley--and the Central Valley alone--for this punitive surtax. I have often wondered why the policy seemed to be aimed at the Central Valley. I don't know what it is that my friends in the opposition have against the thousands of farmworkers whose livelihoods depend upon farming in that region, but they have been waging war on that hapless and helpless group for far too long. This is another example of singling them out for a special punitive tax paid by no one else in all of the Bureau of Reclamation experience.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment, more than any other, focuses on the central issue surrounding this bill: What comes first-- families or fish?

In 1992, the Central Valley Project Improvement Act carved out 800,000 acre-feet to be dedicated for fish and wildlife purposes. That water came out of the allocations for the Central Valley that all sides had agreed to. At the time, it was promised that the water would be replaced. That promise is unfulfilled to this day.

Worse, the Federal Government began treating this allotment as a floor rather than as a ceiling. In the mid-1990s, a zealous official in the Department of the Interior preempted State water rights and ordered that more than 1 million acre-feet of water appropriated by the Central Valley Project be used for purposes not authorized under water rights permits issued by the State of California.

This bill reestablished the 800,000 acre-foot allotment agreed to by all sides when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt promised: ``A deal is a deal, and if it turns out there is a need for additional water, it will come at the expense of the Federal Government.'' This provision redeems the promise that was broken by Mr. Babbitt's deputy, and the provision that the gentlelady is offering would have us delete that provision.

I might add that, also under this bill, the 800,000 acre-feet can be recycled by communities once it has met its environmental purpose rather than being lost to the ocean. To those who tell us they like recycling, this is the ultimate recycling bill. I might also point out that an amendment that had a very similar effect 2 years ago was rejected on a bipartisan vote of 178-247 in this House. I would recommend that we do so again today.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my distinguished colleague from the Central Valley (Mr. Valadao), the author of this measure.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, like Tennyson's rotting mackerel in the moonlight, this amendment shines and stinks.

It states the obvious: the bill will not harm delta drinking water supplies. Well, of course it won't. After all, the delta counties are senior to the Central Valley in their water rights and so they have first call on that water. Under this bill, no agency of the State or Federal Government can take that right away.

Furthermore, under this bill, the delta counties can also reuse environmental water that otherwise would have been lost to the ocean, making this the ultimate water recycling bill.

This bill in no way affects the quality of drinking water in the delta or anywhere else. The proof of that is the fact that in the years following adoption of the Bay Delta Accord, which H.R. 3964 merely restores, never was it suggested by any water agency that drinking water or agricultural water was adversely affected in any way, shape, or form.

By placing this provision in the bill, it immediately opens it up to litigation that could tie it up in the courts for years. The mere allegation by a single litigant, no matter how outlandish, no matter how contorted, could stall these vitally needed reforms. It would also give this administration the ability to claim a right to nullify this law based on such a fiction.

A few years ago, when Central Valley water was being diverted for the delta smelt, I confronted the Secretary of the Interior in the Natural Resources Committee. I pointed out that with thousands of farmworkers unemployed, with a quarter-million acres of prime farmland destroyed, with food lines in the agricultural capital of the West, with unemployment in some of these communities reaching 45 percent, he had the authority to suspend the diversions and restore that water to the Valley to stop this human tragedy. He acknowledged that he had that authority, but he wouldn't use it, he said, because doing so ``would be like admitting failure.''

The amendment before us would give the same administration the excuse to ignore reality and act on ideological whim.

When this amendment was offered 2 years ago, it was rejected on a bipartisan vote of 177-243 in this House.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2\3/4\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes), who introduced the predecessor to this bill 2 years ago.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment seeks to impose yet another environmental study that could lead to more water being diverted away from families and farmers and flushed out into the ocean. If you support throwing more stored water out to the ocean and making this crisis worse, then this amendment is another step toward that end.

Now, those who speak of ``resiliency'' and ``adaptability'' are using these terms to propose that dams evacuate more water storage earlier in the water year to account for faster snowmelt from the mountains and rain-based inflows. Now, just today, the East Bay Express reported that water managers deliberately dumped 800,000 acre-feet--as I said earlier, enough for 4 million Californians--into the Pacific Ocean that they knew was desperately needed as the drought continued to worsen.

Folsom Lake, the principal source of water storage for Sacramento and its suburbs, is nearly empty now because of those releases. We watched the Sacramento River at full flood all autumn and wondered what in the world were they thinking.

The fact is a hydrology consensus does not exist on this, and we should not be asking the GAO to investigate terms that are based on a lack of scientific consensus.

This amendment does nothing to restore water that continues to be lost to punitive Federal regulations and may, in fact, contribute to new regulatory overreach.

Californians are in a drought crisis now. It is time for action, not another bureaucratic study with no end in sight. This is why we must not impose studies in this bill or create steps to further erode water storage. We need to build more storage and capture more water, and that is precisely what this bill does. This bill is aimed at implementing a permanent solution to California's water crises so we can put people back to work permanently and restore balance back to California's water supply.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we are ready to close when the gentlewoman is.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for making the point. I want people to look at the pictures of the empty reservoir at Folsom, the near-empty reservoir at Oroville and remember 800,000 acre-feet that could have been retained behind those dams was released by water officials for the environmental regulations that the gentleman defends. I think people need to reflect on that water that should right now be sitting behind those dams but for these regulations and realize what is exacerbating this terrible drought.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), my friend and neighbor.

Mr. Chairman, my objection to this amendment is similar to others of its ilk. It would allow litigation to block implementation of this bill indefinitely. There is, of course, nothing in this bill that would interfere with the State's water bond or its groundwater monitoring or groundwater conservation. Indeed, it will improve groundwater conservation since it brings balance back to surface water deliveries and restores the incentives for groundwater recharging.

The poison pill is not only the prospect of indefinite delay based upon the allegation of a single individual that can find the ear of a sympathetic judge. It is introducing the subjective standard of coequal goals for the delta.

The term ``coequal goals'' is something that is subjective. A term like this is subject to litigation not only at the State level but will be used as a means, if this amendment is adopted, to litigate this bill and delay the balance that it restores.

That balance was established by the bipartisan Bay Delta Accord that was hailed by all sides as a historic agreement to serve the coequal goals of human prosperity and environmental protection. When that agreement was signed, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt assured all parties that ``a deal is a deal, and if it turns out there is a need for additional water, it will come at the expense of the Federal Government.'' The water diversions for the delta smelt, based upon the same opportunity to litigate that this amendment renews, shattered that promise. This bill redeems it. The amendment should be rejected.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we are ready to close when the gentleman from California is.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes).

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has it exactly backwards. This prevents water from being stolen from northern California in violation of State water rights. It strengthens the water rights that exist in current law. It means that water cannot be stolen from northern California even by the State itself.

This amendment offered by my friend is a variation of the amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Bera) earlier. It gives the Secretary of the Interior the ability to suspend most provisions of this law until she certifies it will have no adverse effect on delta agricultural water. Well, the same points apply. Despite the fact that this bill strengthens water rights in which the delta is senior to the Central Valley, this bill would give the Secretary, on whim, the power to ignore this law even in wet years, an authority her predecessor has already emphatically proven can and will be abused.

I will challenge the gentleman to cite one example of a complaint that agricultural water in the delta was adversely affected during all the years the Bay Delta Accord was in effect. This bill merely restores the Bay Delta Accord while strengthening northern California water rights. If he cannot cite even one example, he must admit that this amendment is a hoax designed to nullify the law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we are ready to close if the gentleman is.

Mr. Chairman, I remind the House that this same amendment was brought up 2 years ago and rejected, once again, on a bipartisan vote of 177-243.

I now yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao), the author of this important legislation.

Mr. Chairman, California has been plagued by litigation and regulation, delay and obfuscation on its water policy, and we are now living with the result of that.

The gentleman offers us an amendment that is more of the same--in fact, in this case, delaying the bill until the Federal Government measures the water content of clouds. Enough is enough. It is a time now for action, and this bill calls for action.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao), the author of the measure.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would invite my colleague to visit southern California to check with the rest of California on how we are handling the drought.

Ninety-eight percent of California, as shown by this map, is in drought. We are entering the third year of drought, the driest on record in California.

This bill, H.R. 3964, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act, targets California's Central Valley only and was introduced 1 week ago with no hearing, no markup, no conversation, nothing, a partisan bill, introduced only by California Republicans, with no meaningful conversation or cooperation with the rest of the California Members, who are all facing similar drought impacts. It is similar to H.R. 1837 from 2011 in the last Congress, and it died in the Senate, as was pointed out.

According to the California Department of Water Resources, the snowpack in the Sierras, the largest reservoir in the Central Valley Project System, was 6 percent of normal. Last week, the National Drought Monitor found that 98 percent of the State is experiencing moderate to severe drought--so dry in California that in the first 18 days of January, the State saw 289 fires that burned 721 acres, including the Colby fire partly in my district.

The State has hired nearly 100 more firefighters and used a super water scooper airplane, at a time when California should be experiencing its wettest month.

California Natural Resources Secretary Laird said it best in a letter: ``This bill falsely holds the promise of water relief that cannot be delivered because, in this drought, the water simply does not exist.''

This legislation, instead, reallocates water in a way that erroneously elevates junior water rights uses above all other water needs, including municipal, fisheries and environmental uses.

It repeals existing State law for water use in California, establishing a very harmful precedent for other States. It repeals sections 104, 107, 108, 110, 204, and 401 that explicitly waive State law or reclamation law. It repeals historic California water rights and decades of carefully balanced water compromises. It undermines California and other States' abilities to manage its own resources. It overturns nearly 20 years of environmental and conservation protections under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, CVPIA, and the Endangered Species Act, and ignores the best available science demonstrating the negative effects on species. We are, in fact, a species too, the human species.

It repeals the Federal and State agreement on the court-ordered San Joaquin Restoration Settlement Act. It prohibits Federal or State governments from exercising valid water rights in order to conserve, enhance, recover, or otherwise protect any species that is affected by operations of the CVP or State Water Project. It also reallocates water for junior water rights holders in the Central Valley and ignores the needs of southern California and other water users while privatizing a public resource for a select few.

It does not--I repeat--does not create any new water to solve the drought. It completely eliminates the coequal goal of protecting the environment and allowing water deliveries. It eliminates that coequal code. It puts jobs at risk, not only for fishermen but also the economy. It would revert contract renewal terms to 40 years instead of the current 25.

Mr. Chairman, the severity of this legislation benefits a very small group. It does not benefit all of drought-impacted California. It needs the cooperation of a bipartisan solution for all of the State, including southern California.

Water bonds in the past have favored northern California. The levee funding favored the Bay Delta, and H.R. 3964 favors Central Valley farmers only.

Southern California wants and needs to be included in a dialogue and be part of the solution. We are currently in dialogue with the Senators on a drought bill.

Title XVI, which is recycled water, WaterSMART, Republicans have been stonewalling ideas. They are not allowing bills to be given the courtesy of a hearing in the subcommittee or full committee.

The Bureau of Reclamation is working with WaterSMART project funding of only $27.5 million and water recycling project funding, Title XVI, of $21.5 million, with a backlog of $400 million in congressionally approved projects.

Mr. Chairman, I will submit letters in opposition: from the White House, a statement and a veto threat; from the Governor of California, Governor Brown; from the California Department of Natural Resources Secretary John Laird; from California Attorney General Kamala Harris; and from 34 diverse California environmental groups.

The Western States Water Council indicates their opposition has not changed to the provisions that preempt states' rights. The bill will just create more litigation over water and not solve anything. We need to work on a bipartisan basis on putting that forth. H.R. 3964 is not such an attempt. I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 3964.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Office of the Governor,

February 3, 2014.

Re Opposition to H.R. 3964.

Hon. Doc Hastings,

Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Peter DeFazio,

Ranking Member, Committee on Natural Resources, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman and Representative DeFazio: California is

currently experiencing the worst water crisis in our modern

history. We are in our third consecutive year of extremely

dry weather, and our most recent snow survey found that the

Sierra snowpack--a source of water supply for 25 million

Californians--is 12 percent of the normal average, the lowest

ever recorded. Since declaring a drought state of emergency

on January 17th, state agencies have been working closely

with federal, local, and municipal agencies and others, to

respond quickly. We have taken unprecedented actions to deal

with the crisis, including allocating zero water deliveries

to water contractors from the State Water Project for the

first time in the project's history. Last week, California

also released a comprehensive plan for future water

management, including storage, conservation, recycling, water

transfers and other actions.

H.R. 3964 is an unwelcome and divisive intrusion into

California's efforts to manage this severe crisis. It would

override state laws and protections, and mandate that certain

water interests come out ahead of others. It falsely suggests

the promise of water relief when that is simply not possible

given the scarcity of water supplies. H.R. 3964 would

interfere with our ability to respond effectively and

flexibly to the current emergency, and would re-open old

water wounds undermining years of progress toward reaching a

collaborative long-term solution to our water needs.

I urge you to oppose H.R. 3964.

Sincerely,

Edmund G. Brown, Jr.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the ranking member of the committee.

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from northern California (Mr. Costa).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California, Congressman Thompson.

May I inquire the length of time remaining on both sides, please.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California, Congressman Ami Bera.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on both sides.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

We have no more speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In closing, we have heard a lot of conversation about what is good and what is not good for my great State of California.

We continue to stress we need to work together. Mr. Bera said that. Mr. Denham says create your own.

Well, I thought this was the House of the people and that we are supposed to be working together. That is why we have such a low ranking in the view of the American public--we continually fight against each other.

We need to sit in dialogue and be able to converse--at least agree on things that are necessary--to be able to help our country back on its feet instead of fighting over what is not necessarily fightable about.

Mr. Hastings, the chairman, talked about the resolutions of past legislation. Like anything else, we don't get information about many of the bills until last minute. I cannot get any hearings on some of my bills, and neither can some of my members get hearings in the subcommittee or the full committee for being able to address some of these issues that have come up on water.

In summary, we have, of course, this bill that repeals historic California water rights; overturns 20 years of environmental and conservation protections; ignores best available science; repeals the court ordered San Joaquin

Restoration Settlement Act; preempts California State law; and creates no new water.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter a Statement of Administration Policy:

The administration strongly opposes H.R. 3964, the

Emergency Water Delivery Act, because it would not alleviate

the effects of California's current drought and would disrupt

decades of work that supports building consensus, solutions,

and settlements that equitably address some of California's

most complex water challenges. California is experiencing

severe drought conditions and low reservoir storage. The

urgency and seriousness of the situation requires a balanced

approach that promotes water reliability and ecosystem

restoration.

It ends with:

For these reasons, if the President were presented with

H.R. 3964, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto

the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this very dangerous precedent for not only my State of California but for the rest of the Nation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order by the rule.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment to H.R. 3964 is very, very simple. It is an inconvenient

truth, however, that it creates a revenue stream to the Treasury by eliminating an irrigation subsidy which requires irrigators to pay project debt with interest--in other words, ending free taxpayer subsidy since 1902, which has been in place since reclamation was created. It requires that any new water contracts or renewed contracts must reflect the price of water with interest and repay the debt of the project to only the Treasury with interest. This will be of small assistance to balancing our national debt.

When reclamation was established in 1902, it was meant to deliver water to farms with approximately 160 acres. Subsequent congressional action has changed the acreage limitation along with the repayment contract for these projects. So, in 1982, acreage was increased to 960 acres. Congressional action has also made the repayment of project debt interest free for irrigators while municipalities, like my constituents--my water people--and power users pay the required appropriate interest. I wish other State water users were as lucky as these folks.

H.R. 3964 removes the role of the Federal Government in protecting environment and public good. That is not good. If we are removing the role of the Federal Government, then we should also remove the Federal subsidy associated with renewed or new water contracts.

My constituents and anybody else's must fairly and equally repay additional interest on any project, and they have. For over a decade, southern California foresaw needed infrastructure, and many local entities stepped up to the plate and provided some relief. We paid for and constructed new storage facilities, like the Diamond Valley Lake Reservoir, entirely paid for by local groups and without one Federal cent, adding 1 million acres of new storage. This is on top of the investments we have made in title XVI--recycled water, which has only a 25 percent Federal match--which created 680,000 acre-feet in California alone.

Let's end this interest-free subsidy at our taxpayers' expense, at all of America's taxpayers' expense. Eliminating this unfair subsidy will help to cut our deficit, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

With regard to a statement that was just made on the Bay Delta, it seems that Secretary Babbitt and the Secretary of Natural Resources were the ones who actually passed the Bay Delta Accord, and 3 years were spent by Mr. Garamendi in trying to implement this.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time is remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman, we can go on debating the issue, but everybody who takes a loan has to pay interest, and I don't see any reason why since 1902 our irrigators have been singled out for not having to pay that while the power marketing agencies and other water agencies do have to ante up that interest. They do pass it on to the consumer, but the consumer understands why.

We need to be transparent on the issue and be able to let people know really what we are paying for. Yes, we have the lowest priced crops in California, but we must be able to ensure that we let the rest of the Nation know why we need to move forward. The Central Valley Project, the CVP, was $1.78 billion. Only $236 million has been repaid, and $1.45 billion has not been repaid.

Mr. Chairman, I think this is an amendment that is in order so as to begin trying to help balance our budget. We hope that we will get our colleagues to understand that all of us have to hurt a little bit, and I don't see why this does not have the merit that it should, so I urge a ``yes'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3964.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the House today is considering H.R. 3964, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act.

Like California, my central Washington district is heavily dependent on irrigated water to support our local economic and agriculture industry. I understand the importance of having a stable, reliable water supply, and I also understand the economic devastation that is caused when the water supply is shut off, particularly when the shutoff is avoidable.

California is facing an emergency situation. For years, San Joaquin Valley farmers have been fighting against Federal regulations and environmental lawsuits that have diverted water supplies in order to help a 3-inch fish. In 2009, there was a deliberate diversion of over 300 billion--that is ``billion,'' Mr. Chairman--gallons of water away from farmers. As a result, thousands of farmworkers lost their jobs, unemployment in some areas reached 40 percent, and thousands of acres of fertile farmland simply dried up.

As chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, I have traveled to Fresno, California, and seen the effects of natural and manmade drought firsthand. We have held multiple hearings and heard the pleas of communities that simply want the water turned back on and their livelihood restored.

We have seen farmers, Mr. Chairman, who normally help feed the Nation being sent to wait in line at food banks and, in some cases, being served carrots that are normally grown in this area that are from China.

That is why, last Congress, the House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation to restore the flow of water to avoid future droughts. In fact, the Senate did not take up a single water bill in this last Congress, even after we had passed our legislation.

So, once again, we are back here on the floor of the House with legislation to help California communities once again facing water shutoffs. But now, Mr. Chairman, the situation is much more dire.

The lack of rainfall has exacerbated the manmade drought, and last month, the California Governor declared a state of emergency. A manmade drought coupled with a natural drought equals disaster and requires immediate action. Of course, these conditions could have been partially avoided if only the Senate had acted on the House-passed legislation last year.

This comprehensive solution before us today, almost identical to what the House passed the last Congress, would restore some water deliveries that will be cut off due to Federal regulations and environmental lawsuits, ensure a reliable water source for people and fish, secure water rights, and save taxpayer money by ending unnecessary and dubious government projects.

Mr. Chairman, I want to stress that this crisis does not just impact California, but it has rippling effects across the entire Nation. California's San Joaquin Valley is the salad bowl for the world and provides a significant share of the fruits and vegetables for our country.

Food grows where water flows. When there is no water, our food supply suffers, resulting in higher food prices across the country and increased reliance on foreign food sources.

This bill is a chance to right the regulatory wrongs of the past, to end future manmade droughts, and to protect the jobs and economic livelihoods of farm families and their workers.

The people of the San Joaquin Valley cannot wait any longer, Mr. Chairman, for Congress to act. As the title of this bill suggests, it is truly an emergency for many, and time is running out. I sincerely hope that, unlike the last Congress, our Senate colleagues will take up this bill or propose a meaningful alternative to it, then we can come together and figure out where we disagree and then agree on a final package. These communities facing massive unemployment deserve nothing less.

This bill is supported, Mr. Chairman, by the entire Republican California delegation, and I commend my colleagues from California for their hard work in getting this bill to the floor today. So I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao), the author of this legislation, whose district has been heavily impacted by this manmade drought.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the committee who has worked very hard on this legislation in the last Congress and in this Congress.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), another member of the Natural Resources Committee and a Californian.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to another gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), a former member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Denham), another former member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes), the author of the legislation that passed this House in a bipartisan way last time, which this bill emulates.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This debate, Mr. Chairman, is very interesting. And what we are presenting here today and what is being presented by my California colleagues is, from their point of view, a solution to a problem caused by a drought and caused by regulatory action in the State of California.

I have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stand up-- virtually everybody has said this. I know my colleague, Mr. Garamendi, said something that I will allude to in a moment. Mr. Costa said something about that. The ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee said something about what I am going to say, and, I dare say, the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Napolitano) said the same thing.

The thread of what they all said is that there are solutions, and we need to work together. We need to find these solutions, to which our side says fine, this is our solution. We recognize you may not like it. We recognize that. But we also have one other point that we need to recognize, and that is the genius of our Founding Fathers. They created two branches of the legislative branch, the Congress: the House, in which we have the privilege of serving, and the Senate.

I made the observation in my opening statement that the Senate has not acted on any water bill laws at all. Well, finally somebody in this area is catching that message, because the Fresno Bee in California, which is right in the epicenter, if you will, of the San Joaquin Valley, editorialized last week that Senator Feinstein must step up and lead on the drought. What that means, of course, is step up and write a piece of legislation. I have heard my colleagues say we are working on a piece of legislation, maybe by next week.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make this point. This is very specific. Introducing a piece of legislation is not legislating. Legislating is when you pass a piece of legislation out of your respective House, and I think that is what the Fresno Bee is saying right here when they tell Senator Feinstein and others that they need to step up on this and pass some legislation.

Listen, I am sure that legislation will be different than this. We have heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That is fine. I can take it, and, I dare say, my California colleagues can take it, too, and then we can work out the difference. But we don't know what your position is.

Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good piece of legislation. The last Congress acted on it, and it should act on it again.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to respond to remarks that the previous speaker from California made about the potential danger in this bill as they relate to water rights in other States.

What the gentleman was alluding to is absolutely incorrect because the language in this bill is very specific; it is very specific as it relates to California.

We went through this process in the last Congress when we went through hearings because other States--my State included--was very, very concerned that whatever preemption had to do with water here would affect other States. Last year in this bill, the language is very, very specific: it does not apply to other States; it is California-centric only.

So I want to make that point, Mr. Chairman.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, if I could inquire of my friend if she has any more speakers; and, if not, if she is prepared to close, her side is prepared to close, I am prepared to close.

In that case, I reserve the balance of my time so you can close, and we will have one final speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority whip.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, as the ranking member stated, this amendment states that the California Governor's declared drought emergency is considered a request to the Federal Government to declare a fisheries disaster. Under longstanding law, the Governor can make such a request by sending a letter to the Commerce Secretary.

The amendment does not change underlying law that requires the Commerce Secretary to determine whether a fisheries disaster declaration is merited. This amendment simply serves as a request, but the Commerce Secretary still has discretion to make a decision on this request. As such, we do not have any objections to the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, for any of you that were listening to the debate as we debated the amendment in the general debate on this, it is very, very evident that this bill is focused only on California--only on California. And the reason I make that point, because part of the reason that California is in this situation is because of Federal law and Federal regulations.

Now, one of the ironies here, there is a lot of ironies when you look at these motions to recommit, but my good friend, the sponsor of the motion to recommit, I believe, was in office, or overseeing, at some time when these water projects were passed for California. And here is the interesting point, because he makes the very, what is a valid point, one worries about preempting State law. But the Central Valley Project in California preempted California law when it was passed. Nobody heard anything about that then. The San Joaquin River project preempted State law.

I just want to make this point. No other State is affected. This is a California-centric piece of legislation.

I will not yield to the gentleman. He didn't give me that courtesy earlier. I am not going to give him that courtesy.

Finally, this is the final point that I want to make, and this is important. This is important.

We heard the solution to the California water problems is embodied in this bill. It is similar to a bill that we passed last year--with bipartisan support, I might add. We heard, today, my friends on the other side debate over and over, there are solutions. There are solutions to this, there are solutions to that. You know something? Nobody offered a solution. Furthermore, the other body in our legislative process has yet to offer a solution.

Now, I can understand people not liking this solution. I understand that. But somebody has to give us something to negotiate with. That is what the issue is all about.

We think this is right. We will find out if it is right if the House votes to pass this, and then we will go to the next process. But, for goodness sakes, give California a chance to get a solution.

This MTR does nothing to advance that. Vote ``no'' on the MTR and vote for the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know if it is proper to ask you a question, but is this February 2? I am reminded of the movie ``Groundhog Day.'' We continue to repeat what happened yesterday and the year before. This is a repetition of a bill that came to the floor 2 years ago. It was a bill that had a lot of different pieces to it but was very, very simple in what it accomplished, or attempted to accomplish, and that was to take water from someone--the environment, fish, and the delta, farmers, communities, Contra Costa County, the East Bay of San Francisco--and deliver it to someone else. That would be the San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project. That was 2 years ago. It must be February 2. It must be Groundhog Day because we are doing it all over again. Whatever little whistles and bells and bows you want to put on it, this is essentially a theft of water from someone to give to somebody else. Plain and simple, that is what it is about.

In this case, the water is going to be stolen--and I use that word because that is accurate--from the delta, from the environment, San Francisco Bay, from the salmon, which is a huge industry in California, all the way up the coast to Oregon, to be given to the largest single- water district in the Nation. A district that, by its contract with the Federal Government, is specifically set to take shortages in their water when there is a drought. If this bill becomes law, that won't be the case. They will get the water and someone else won't.

Okay. We have seen this show before. We also saw before that this type of legislation, as does this bill, overturns the California constitution, pushes it out of the way, and all this is done by folks who normally call themselves State righters.

Well, this is the biggest grab of power by the Federal Government on water anywhere in the history of reclamation law dating back to 1904. Never before has the Federal Government made such an attempt to grab the water rightfully belonging to a State and saying, in this case, California, you are going to use that water as seen fit by the farm bill.

Current water law and current law and practices for a century and more have been the opposite. This doesn't solve the problem. We have got a real problem. These have been seen before and they are going to have to be seen over and over, because that was a year ago. We turn it upside right. Whatever, it is a lot of snow; right? That was a year ago, snow in the Sierras. That is this year, no snow.

And by the way, the Central Valley looks pretty much like a desert-- not just the San Joaquin Valley, but the whole valley.

We have got a problem. We have a very real problem. We really need a real solution. This bill isn't a solution. This bill is a call to arms. This bill is the clarion call of yet one more battle in the great California water war, and we are all veterans of that war. My colleagues over here on the Republican aisle, my colleagues over here on the Democratic aisle, we are veterans of the water war.

Unfortunately, this bill doesn't solve the problem of California. There are solutions available. We really need to get to them. We really need to sit down and work with a bill that passed the House and the Senate and was signed by the President less than 2 weeks ago, the omnibus bill.

In that omnibus bill there is a restoration, a reauthorization of the Federal drought emergency program that has some 16, 17 different provisions that provide for specific things that we should be funding. There's no money in this bill for funding. We are going to have to fund this. This is a Westwide problem, a problem that reaches across many, many States, and it is going to take all of us working together to help each individual State, each community, and every water district deal with a very real problem. It is a battle. It is a call to arms. Get to your barricades. Pull out the old weapons. We really need a sensible solution here, and, unfortunately, this bill simply doesn't do it.

Mr. Chairman, we continually hear about the 800,000 acre-feet. Indeed, there is 800,000 acre-feet. It is not out to the ocean; It is into the delta. That water is available for a variety of purposes, including Contra Costa, the entire East Bay, and Solano County that I represent. It is there as environmental water, but it has multiple purposes, so it is not wasted water at all.

The other thing is this allocation chart that keeps coming up. That is an allocation based upon a prediction of the amount of water that rain will fall that year. It is not the actual amount of water delivered. If you take a look at the actual amount of water delivered, it is substantially greater.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are going back and forth with a lot of numbers here, and there's something we need to understand. The allocation is a number that is taken from the nature of the--that the water year is supposed to be. That is the early allocation.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which, unfortunately, will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

Perhaps all of you have heard that there is a drought in the West. If you haven't, I am here to tell you there is a serious drought in the West--not just California, but throughout the West.

This particular piece of legislation is said to deal with the drought. It does not. This legislation does two things that every one of us ought to be concerned about.

First of all, it is a water grab. It takes water from somebody and gives it to somebody else.

Secondly, if you are interested in states' rights, if you are interested in the power of a community to decide its own future, you had better be paying attention to this bill. This bill is very, very much about the power of a community, a power of a State to decide what it wants to do with its water.

This is an issue of profound importance to every State in the West that has a reclamation project, because this bill sets out for the very first time the Federal Government overriding State constitution, in this case the constitution of the State of California, State water law, and contracts. This is serious stuff.

If this were to somehow solve the crisis in California, you may accept it. But it does not. It does not create 1 gallon of water. It simply steals what little water there is available from some and gives it to another.

I yield 1 minute to my colleague from California (Mr. Bera).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my colleague from California (Mr. Huffman).

Will it take my time?

I am afraid I cannot yield. Sorry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I want to be very, very clear with my colleagues. California water issues go back to the very beginning of the State, the Gold Rush, and as they have said, whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting.

Unfortunately, this bill does nothing to solve the current crisis in California. What it does, it sets in motion a series of pieces of legislation that will unravel 150 years of California water law and set in place extraordinary chaos.

It does deliver water from one area to another area, literally stealing that water and giving it to others.

It does override the California State Constitution and what we call the Public Trust Doctrine, that is, the water of California belongs to all the people of California. It is allocated by law, by precedent, and by water rights that are allocated. This overrides that.

We don't want the Federal Government to go there if you care anything about your State, about the water in your State, and about your community. We need a long-term and short-term solution.

Fortunately, in the omnibus bill, we did reinstate the Federal drought protection drought response act. We have many of the tools in place to deal with

the drought today. What we don't have is money.

I would ask the majority to put up a bill that delivers the money to carry out what is already in the law, which we did just 2 weeks ago.

Unfortunately, this bill puts in place a new water war which we do not and cannot have at a time when we need to come together to solve California water problems.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield for a fact?

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, this is about 40 years of policies that passed out of this body that took water from our region and sent it out to the ocean. That is what this debate is about. So the inconvenient truth for the folks on the left is that their 40 years of policies have resulted in people running out of water.

One of the times they stole water was in 1992. After that, we had what were called the Bay-Delta Accord, State-Federal partnership. That was the last time we were supposed to give up water. It codified into law that agreement.

So the gentleman was talking about stealing water, they are very good at stealing water. At the time they stole water last time, they said the accord was going to be the last time we were going to have water stolen from us. That was in 1994. But water continues to be stolen.

Now there seems to be this misunderstanding about how the system works. L.A., Hollywood, San Francisco, it is a desert. They don't have water. They conveniently get their water from the Colorado River or from the Yosemite Valley. They ignore all environmental rules, but they make our people who live in the San Joaquin Valley live by the rules that they don't want to live by. That is the reality.

So we have these projects that are built for 5 years of storage and movement of water. So you can see when we had a drought in 1997 and 1991 and 2009, these were the allotments at those times. Last year, we actually didn't have a real bad drought. Look at the allocation. So the system simply isn't being used. All the aqueducts and all the dams that were constructed--led by Democrats, of all people, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy.

John F. Kennedy said this:

This is a fast trip, but if it had no other benefit than to

permit us to look at this valley and others like it across

the country, where we can see the greenest and richest earth,

producing the greatest and richest crops in the country, and

then a mile away, see the same earth and see it brown and

dusty and useless, and all because there is water in one

place and there isn't in another.

President Kennedy had the foresight to construct these projects that now, after 40 years of bad policies by the left, they have run the State out of water. They have run the State out of water.

Meanwhile, they talk about killing the fish. Well, why are they killing the fish? Because all of these cities that most on the left represent dump their sewage into the delta. That kills the fish. So stop dumping the sewer water in the delta if you care about the fish. If you care about the fish, give up your water in Yosemite National Park and let that water go out to the delta to save the fish.

Mr. Chairman, the time for stealing water has ended, and that is what this bill does.

I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment and the last amendment are about one thing. Let's not be fooled here. It is about sewer discharge from the communities in the delta that continue to dump their sewer water, runoff water, into the delta. They don't want to have to take responsibility for their actions.

So I hate to have to keep going back to this, but I am going to have to go back to it again.

You see a discharge there. Here are the communities all dumping sewage

into the delta. That is all both of these amendments are about. That is why you should vote against them.

What is interesting about this is you have heard a lot of talk about the fish. This is what the true believers really want to protect. They want to protect this fish right here called the delta smelt. This is what this is about. It is about the Endangered Species Act. It is about the biggest water grab in history and running people out of water to protect this little fish.

But they just don't want to protect that fish, oh, no. That is not good enough, Mr. Chairman. They want to dump their sewer water, protect the smelt, and protect the striped bass.

The striped bass is not native to the delta, but they want to protect it. Do you know why they want to protect it? Because they say that fishermen want to fish. But, conveniently, it is not native to the delta. But guess what the striped bass eats? If you can see on this, it eats the smelt.

It eats the smelt, Mr. Chairman. Inconvenient little truth there. So they want to protect these and these. This one eats those. This is a problem that can't be fixed by people who want to protect little fish, Mr. Chairman.

So, as we started out today, this is a bill that passed the last Congress. Had the Senate acted on it, we would not be in the situation that we are today. We are out of water because we are not using the infrastructure that our State has built and added on to over the last century. We decided to throw all that infrastructure away, not use it, dump the water out to the ocean. Now we have no more water left.

Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate what Mr. McClintock said. This is designed to kill the bill. This is a sneaky little lawyer amendment designed for litigation. This amendment, Valadao amendment, stops all litigation and gives back the people of California their water, and it quits wasting water. That is what this does.

I can understand why my friends on the other side of the aisle don't like to talk about the little 3-inch fish, which, I guess it has a little brain now. Well, it is a bait fish; of course it has a little brain.

The folks you have to ask yourselves about are the ones who come down here and talk about State preemptions when they know the Endangered Species Act is a preemption. They know what passed in 1992 was a State preemption. They know what passed in 2009 was a State preemption. Sneaky little lawyers all over the place.

Money, Mr. Chairman, money. It is about money. It is about NRDC. NRDC has made millions of dollars that we still cannot get an accounting for. Mr. Chairman, I want to know, how much money has NRDC made off of bringing water lawsuits in the State of California? Millions. Millions and millions and millions. That is what this amendment is designed to do, is to create jobs for lawyers. That is what this is about.

So I would advise and ask my colleagues to kill this amendment by voting ``no.''

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is another stall tactic. There have been several speakers who have talked about how this bill creates no water. Well, I hate to break it to people, but bills don't create water. It rains. That is why the founding fathers of our State, including Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, two United States presidents, worked with the leadership of California to develop a system that could keep water for 5 years so we could withstand 5 years of drought.

I hate to have to use this, but this is how it works. Mr. Chairman, the sun melts the snow. The snow gets stored in the reservoirs, in this case this is Yosemite, where San Francisco gets all of its water. Then the water runs out. That is how it works. That is how the system was designed to work.

If you don't understand this chart, I have another chart. Once again, I apologize, Mr. Chairman, because this one is a little basic. But, sun--sun creates heat. Heat melts ice. Ice becomes water. Water we use to drink and irrigate our crops. That is how this works.

Government doesn't create water. Government can only help to create the infrastructure to hold the water in an area that is like California that is always in a drought.

So our friends from the coastal areas of California like to have it both ways. They like to drink their water from the Sierra Nevadas and pipe it over so it never has to go into the delta. At the same time, they dump their sewage into the delta that kills the fish.

So this bill was not designed to make it rain. Nobody can do that. We don't need to measure clouds. This bill is designed to get the water that we have in the wet years and hold it for the dry years.