Water Rights Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. I thank the chairman for yielding.

Madam Chair, I am glad to be able to speak today on H.R. 3189. This bill will have a great impact on many of the resource holders in my district here in the northeast part of California.

Yes, we are going through a drought, but this isn't just an issue that might affect ski resorts or even ranchers. This is a property rights issue that we should be looking at all across the country.

It is very dangerous when the U.S. Forest Service or BLM can just come in and arbitrarily decide, after long-held water rights--some of these ranches have been around 150 years or more--that they can change the game--change the rules.

The ranches have been around longer than some of these bureaucracies; yet they want to come in and say: we are going to change the game because we have decided it should be different.

Now, when you have this type of right under fire for something as beneficial--farming and ranching, grazing is actually beneficial to forest land, towards fire suppression--and yet, we have people who think that this is somehow a special right or something that is going to take additional water away from other people.

These are already adjudicated water rights--pre-1914 water rights in California. They are not taking more than what already belongs to them, so it is really a misnomer to think that we are now somehow rejiggering this because it is going to take more from other people.

For 150 years, they have been around; and now, in this day and age, because of the thoughts of a few bureaucrats who want to do this by extortion--which is what it is--you get a permit only if you give up something that has belonged to you for many, many years.

It belongs to them because it is a long-held water right--a long-held property right, so I am glad to help sponsor and support this bill.

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