Snow Water Supply Forecasting Reauthorization Act of 2025

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

I rise in enthusiastic support of H.R. 3857, the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Reauthorization Act, brought forward by my colleague and fellow freshman, Jeff Hurd.

This legislation, as he described, would extend the Bureau of Reclamation's Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program through 2031, ensuring that communities have accurate water supply forecasting.

This program plays a critical role in advancing new technologies, expanding snow monitoring areas, and improving the accuracy of water supply forecasts.

This work is extremely vital to supporting Western communities facing growing challenges of climate change, persistent drought, and growing demands from communities that are growing in our States.

Across the West, communities are experiencing changing precipitation patterns, diminished snowpack, earlier runoff, and changing water availability. I certainly look to the mountains, the Olympics and the Cascades, every time I drive around my district, using a very nontechnological approach to assessing the snowpack on the mountains.

Mr. Speaker, there are definitely scientists using much better tools, but this legislation authorizes even better tools to allow us to plan for our communities' safety and our access to clean water, agriculture, and a thriving economy.

Paired with the growing demand for water, these changes we have seen create uncertainty for water managers and users who rely on accurate data for planning.

By reauthorizing the Snow Water Supply Forecasting program, we ensure water managers and users have the information that they need to make informed decisions and support the continued collaboration between agencies and expanding snowpack data collection and forecasting capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3857) to amend the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program Authorization Act, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 3857, the bill now under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3857, the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Reauthorization Act.

In Colorado and in the West, we don't measure water by what comes out of a faucet. We measure it by what falls on our mountains. Snowpack is our reservoir, our lifeline, and our future, but water managers are still forced to make major decisions with incomplete data and outdated tools.

This bill reauthorizes the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program so that we can use modern technology, lidar, satellite imagery, and other remote-sensing tools to build accurate 3D models of snowpack across entire watersheds. Better data means better reservoir planning, better support for agriculture, better protection for our cities and towns, and better management across every industry that depends upon water in the West.

We cannot manage what we can't measure. H.R. 3857 gives Western communities what they need to plan ahead and protect the water resources that sustain our way of life.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill reauthorizes a vital program that helps water managers promptly and effectively plan for and respond to drought.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.