Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 319: Page 216, line 23, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $50,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 320: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) insert the following new section:

Sec. 4002. None of the funds provided by this Act under

the heading ``Department of Energy, Energy Programs, Energy

Efficiency and Renewable Energy'' shall be available for

``Wind Energy''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 303: Page 216, line 23, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $220,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $220,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 321: Page 216, line 23, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $80,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $80,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 322: Page 354, line 6, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $1,500,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 22, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $1,500,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 304: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) insert the following new section:

Sec. 4002. None of the funds provided by this Act under

the heading ``Department of Energy, Science'' shall be

available for biological and environmental research

authorized under subtitle G of title IX of the Energy Policy

Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 16311 et seq.).

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 305: Page 218, line 5, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $302,000,000)''.

Page 218, line 7, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $302,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $302,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 306: Page 216, line 13, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $586,600,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $586,600,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 307: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) insert the following new section:

Sec. 4002. None of the funds provided by this Act under

the heading ``Department of Energy, Energy Programs, Energy

Efficiency and Renewable Energy'' shall be available for

``Geothermal Technologies''.

Offered By: Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 308: Page 216, line 23, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $44,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $44,000,000)''.

Offered By Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 309: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) insert the following new section:

Sec. 4002. None of the funds provided by this Act under

the heading ``Department of Energy, Energy Programs, Energy

Efficiency and Renewable Energy'' shall be available for

``Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies''.

Offered By Mr. McClintock

Amendment No. 310: Page 216, line 23, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $174,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $174,000,000)''.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I know I speak for all of my Republican colleagues on the Water and Power Subcommittee when I say that we are excited and eager to undertake the mission outlined in House Resolution 72 to identify the Federal regulations in this field that are impeding job creation and that are slowing the economy. The only problem we have got is deciding where to start.

A generation ago, the principal objective of our water and power policy was to create an abundance of both. It was an era when vast reservoirs and hydroelectric facilities produced a cornucopia of clean and plentiful water and electricity, on a scale so vast that many communities didn't even bother to measure the stuff. But that objective of abundance has been abandoned in favor of the rationing of shortages that have been caused by government. The result is increasingly scarce and expensive water and power that now undermines our prosperity as a Nation. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Central Valley of California.

This last Congress sat idly by as this administration deliberately diverted 200 billion gallons of water away from the most abundant agricultural region of our Nation, all to satisfy the environmental left and its pet cause, a 3-inch minnow called the delta smelt. This willful diversion cost over 20,000 farm workers their jobs. It inflicted up to 40 percent unemployment rates in the region. It destroyed more than a quarter-million acres of the most fertile farmland in America. And it forced up the price of groceries for us all.

Or we could start with the Klamath, where this administration is pushing to tear down four perfectly good hydroelectric dams that generate 155 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet, enough to power over 150,000 homes, because we are told of catastrophic declines of salmon.

When I suggested building a salmon hatchery instead, I was informed there already is one. It produces 5 million salmon molt a year, 17,000 of which return to that river as fully grown adults to spawn. But they are deliberately ignored in the population counts. To add insult to insanity, as they tear down these dams in the name of saving the salmon, they are also tearing down the fish hatchery that actually is saving the salmon.

Or we could begin in Colorado, where they have sacrificed over 1,000 megawatts from the Glen Canyon Dam for the humpback chub--at the expense of a long-neglected species called homo sapiens.

Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan was right: In this crisis, government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem. The good news is that it's entirely within our power to correct, and it was clearly the mandate of the American people last fall, and we will act on that mandate beginning with a series of hearings and actions directly related to this much-needed resolution.

I thank my friend for yielding, and I want to continue where my friend from California (Mr. Herger) left off, talking about what kind of times brought Ronald Reagan here to Washington.

We are told today that we face the worst economy since the Great Depression. There are a lot of us that remember an even worse time, when we did have double-digit unemployment and double-digit inflation and mile-long lines around gas stations and interest rates that exceeded 20 percent. And, by the way, when we hear that our world is growing more dangerous by the day, I remember when an American Embassy could be seized with impunity, when an aggressive and expanding Soviet Union daily challenged American interests around the world, when communism went unchallenged in the Western Hemisphere, when the American military had been so badly weakened it couldn't even launch a successful rescue mission.

Perhaps we don't remember those days as vividly because they didn't last very long. At that dark hour in our Nation's history, the American people turned to Ronald Reagan, who diagnosed our country's problems very accurately. In this crisis, he said, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem. He said the Soviet Union is indeed an evil empire, and it was time, he said, that

America stopped apologizing for its interests and started asserting them.

At the time, the American left excoriated Reagan. They warned his policies would lead the Nation to starvation and the world to conflagration. Instead, we enjoyed a period of American prosperity and world influence that was best described with the words ``morning again in America.'' He reduced the tax and regulatory burdens that were crushing America's economy. He reduced government spending as a percentage of GDP. He restored America's military strength and reasserted American interests around the world. He stopped apologizing for America's greatness and started celebrating it.

It was recalled earlier that in his farewell address Reagan attributed his success not to being a great communicator, but to the fact he was communicating great ideas, the self-evident truths of the American founding. He did one other thing. He restored those self- evident truths as the foundation of our domestic and foreign policy, and as a result our Nation prospered and the world enjoyed a rebirth of freedom.

Unfortunately, Reagan's successors gradually abandoned his policies and Americans gradually let loose of those self-evident truths that inspired and animated those policies. But now as our Nation endures prolonged economic distress at home and increasing strife abroad, Americans are beginning to realize that our Nation hasn't been struck down by some mysterious act of God. What has happened to our country is because of specific acts of government, and, as Reagan knew, acts of government are fully within our power to change.

Reagan charted the road back. Our Nation followed him down that road and we discovered that, yes, it does indeed lead to a shining city on a hill. As we remember Ronald Reagan, all that he was and all that he stood for, let's also remember what he did and where he led us. It isn't too late to return to those policies and get back on that road.

Mr. Speaker, I want my children to know what morning again in America actually feels like. I want them to know the optimism that America's best days are yet ahead, and to know the pride and confidence of American exceptionalism. On this centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, let's not just remember him; let's follow his example and get our Nation back on the road to freedom. And let those looking back on our generation say that just when it began to appear that our Nation had forgotten Ronald Reagan and squandered its wealth and abandoned its destiny and forsaken its founding principles, that this generation of Americans rediscovered, restored and revived the memory of Ronald Reagan and the promise of the American founding, and that from that moment in time, America began her next great era of expansion, prosperity and influence.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of the Interior issued an announcement yesterday that perfectly illustrates the irrationality of our current approach to water issues.

California's precipitation this season has gone off the charts. Statewide, snow water content is 198 percent of normal. The all- important northern Sierra snowpack is 174 percent of normal. This is not only a wet year, it is one of the wettest years on record.

Yet yesterday, we have this announcement from the Department of the Interior that despite a nearly unprecedented abundance of water, the Bureau of Reclamation will only guarantee delivery of 45 percent of the central valley of California's contracted water supply south of the Delta. This is the same percentage they received last year that had barely average rainfall.

This is of crucial importance to the entire Nation since the central valley of California is one of the largest producers of our Nation's food supply. California produces half of the U.S. grown fruits and nuts and vegetables on the Nation's grocery shelves, and the prices you pay are directly affected by the California harvest.

The deliberate decision by this administration in 2009 and 2010 to divert hundreds of billions of gallons of water away from the central valley destroyed a quarter million acres of the most productive farmland in America, it threw tens of thousands of families into unemployment, and it affected grocery prices across the country.

At the time the administration blamed a mild drought but never explained why a drought justified their decision to pour 200 billion gallons of water that we did have directly into the Pacific Ocean. In a rational world, a drought means that you are more careful not to waste the water that you have.

Of course, the real reason for this irrational policy is that they were indulging the environmental left's pet cause, a 3-inch minnow called the Delta Smelt. Diverting precious water to the Delta Smelt habitat was considered more important than producing the food that feeds the country and preserving the jobs that produce the food.

But that issue is now moot. This year we have nearly twice the normal water supply at this point in the season, and yet the Department of the Interior will allow less than half of the normal water deliveries to California's central valley agriculture south of the Delta.

The difference comes to 1.1 million acre-feet of water.

Now, consider this. Since December 1, the Central Valley Project has released 1.4 million acre-feet more water into the Pacific Ocean than they did just last year. Let me repeat that. At the same time this administration is denying California central valley agriculture 1.1 million acre-feet of their rightfully contracted water during one of the wettest years on record, it is dumping 1.4 million acre-feet of additional water into the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Speaker, this is insane.

Coleridge's lament, ``Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,'' appears to have become the policy of this administration.

The American people did not invest billions of dollars into Federal water projects so that water can be dumped into the ocean to please environmental extremists. This policy may have been cheered by the previous Congress, but it won't be tolerated by the new majority, nor by the American people.

There was a time when the principal objective of Federal water policy was to assure an abundance of water to support a growing population and a flourishing economy. But in recent years, a radical and retrograde ideology took root in our public policy that abandoned abundance as the object of our water policy and replaced it with the government rationing of government-created shortages. I cannot imagine a more disturbing example of this ideology at work than the announcement yesterday by the Department of the Interior. Even faced with a super- abundance of water, they are determined to create and then to ration water shortages. The American people expect better and they deserve better.

They deserve a government dedicated to restoring jobs, and prosperity, and abundance, all of which is well within our reach if we will simply reverse the folly that was on full display with yesterday's announcement. Ironically, this announcement came on the same day that the President ordered his agencies to identify regulatory policies that are harming the economy. Mr. Speaker, it appears the Department of the Interior missed that memo.