Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment. As we know, California is in the middle of a severe drought, an emergency with no significant relief in sight. We must do all we can to responsibly manage this situation, working with State and local officials to ensure that our farmers, our businesses, and our constituents have the resources they need now and in the future.

While we work to address the current drought situation, the emergency, we know that severe droughts like this one will only become more frequent in the future due to climate change; and we must do all we can as we deal with this emergency to also prepare for the next one.

My amendment simply requires a study of the resiliency and adaptability of Bureau of Reclamation facilities and projects in California to predict changes to the quality, quantity, or reliability of water resources. Simply put, it will look at how well the Bureau is prepared for the expected impacts of climate change.

Like it or not, climate change is real, and it is already happening. We have seen the evidence all around us in more extreme storms, in wildfires, in sea level rising and severe drought.

Water is gold in California. Scientists have long warned that climate change will make droughts, shortages of water, particularly in the Western United States, longer, stronger, and more frequent. So rather than bury our heads in the sand denying the science, we should be doing all we can to make our infrastructure more resilient and adaptable.

At every point in our water infrastructure, from reservoirs to kitchen faucets, we need to find sustainable ways to lessen the impact of severe droughts like this one. That means more conservation, more efficiency, and more recycling, to be sure, but it also means increasing the resiliency and adaptability of existing infrastructure to maximize the limited resources we have.

That is what my amendment is all about--preparing for the future. Simply lurching from crisis to crisis, from drought to drought, is no way to govern, and that is exactly what we have been doing. According to a FEMA study, every dollar spent on predisaster mitigation reduces the cost of future damages by $4.

The drought emergency may not be destroying structures and infrastructures, like some of our extreme storms do, but it is definitely causing serious damage to our crops, to our critical habitats, to our livelihoods. Yet the underlying bill does nothing to address these serious problems, and it does nothing to alleviate the drought emergency in California, and it does nothing to prevent any in the future. Instead, it uses the drought emergency as an excuse to repeal Federal environmental laws to preempt California law, and it would set a dangerous precedent that would have lasting implications on how water is managed throughout the West. That is why the bill is opposed by the State of California and numerous local government agencies, fishing and hunting organizations, editorial boards, and national environmental groups. Rarely has such a diverse coalition come together to oppose a piece of legislation.

Mr. Chairman, instead of wasting time on a divisive bill that is going nowhere, we should be working together to find comprehensive solutions that get our communities the resources they need.

I want to be clear, my amendment does not fix the serious problems with this underlying bill, and I will oppose the bill even if my amendment is adopted. But my amendment will at least move us one step closer to properly preparing for future drought emergencies, so I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Chairman, this is a straightforward amendment. It simply requires a study of adaptability and resiliency of the Bureau of Reclamation's water infrastructure in California.

Scientists are warning us that severe droughts like this one will only grow more severe and frequent in the future. We have a responsibility to our farmers, our businesses, and all of our constituents to do everything possible to prepare for these impacts. My amendment is a step in this direction, so I urge my colleagues to support it.

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source