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Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, this bill is one that is balanced in time and in effort. At a time when snow packs on Sierra Nevada are very low, at a time when the fact that the water supplies for Southern California have been cut off dramatically through a court order restriction or outright abolition on pumping in the Delta area of the San Joaquin Valley because of the endangered delta smelt, and especially due to the fact that this problem has run into Hodges, those of us in the Federal Government can take a little bit of responsibility here, seeing the fact that a major contributing factor to the pollution problem in this lake was our procedure in the Endangered Species Act, though meaning well to preserve the species, took time that created the problem.
And let me explain to you what happened here. The lake lowered to a level where habitat for the least Bell's vireo was able to grow on the dry land during that time.
When authorities realized that this was going to become a problem, they were not allowed, because of the permitting process for what had been designated a habitat that was great for the least Bell's vireo, an endangered species at that time, now threatened, but basically to explain it is the process took so long that the lake raised back up, flooded out this habitat, and now that habitat is decomposing and polluting the waters of Lake Hodges.
No one meant this to happen. There was no intention by either the environmental agencies involved or by the local community to address this issue. It was just as our regulations go, we create these less-than-appropriate situations.
This bill is one that not only recognizes the responsibility of the Federal Government to the problem, but really is one where the local community is saying we will take on the great majority of the responsibility of addressing this issue. For every dollar of Federal funds that is committed under this bill, there will be $3 of local funds to address this.
And this is not an issue that only affects the 50th District, my district, and
a small section around Lake Hodges. The entirety of Southern California is desperate for the massive amounts of water--not massive--but large amounts of water that is not safe to drink at this time.
I think this is a good cooperative effort. The local community has said we will match you 3 to 1. We will hold harmless the fact that the procedures didn't work out like we would all like it to do, but we will be able to make available very safe drinking water in a very environmentally, friendly way.
And that's basically one of those things that I think we can look to as Federal representatives of cooperating, not doing something for the local community but helping the local community do itself and addressing concerns and problems that we might have been part and parcel involved, sticking to our responsibility as long as the local community is willing to stand up and take care of theirs.
With that, I would ask passage of this bill, Mr. Speaker. I think it's one of those, as the chairwoman for the committee pointed out, it's a reasonable, balanced approach. And when we talk about a 3 to 1 match, a local, I think we have got a very strong statement here that the Federal Government is willing to participate, especially when a community is willing to match us 3 to 1 for a situation that everyone agrees no one was without fault on this.
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