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Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I would invite my colleague to visit southern California to check with the rest of California on how we are handling the drought.
Ninety-eight percent of California, as shown by this map, is in drought. We are entering the third year of drought, the driest on record in California.
This bill, H.R. 3964, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act, targets California's Central Valley only and was introduced 1 week ago with no hearing, no markup, no conversation, nothing, a partisan bill, introduced only by California Republicans, with no meaningful conversation or cooperation with the rest of the California Members, who are all facing similar drought impacts. It is similar to H.R. 1837 from 2011 in the last Congress, and it died in the Senate, as was pointed out.
According to the California Department of Water Resources, the snowpack in the Sierras, the largest reservoir in the Central Valley Project System, was 6 percent of normal. Last week, the National Drought Monitor found that 98 percent of the State is experiencing moderate to severe drought--so dry in California that in the first 18 days of January, the State saw 289 fires that burned 721 acres, including the Colby fire partly in my district.
The State has hired nearly 100 more firefighters and used a super water scooper airplane, at a time when California should be experiencing its wettest month.
California Natural Resources Secretary Laird said it best in a letter: ``This bill falsely holds the promise of water relief that cannot be delivered because, in this drought, the water simply does not exist.''
This legislation, instead, reallocates water in a way that erroneously elevates junior water rights uses above all other water needs, including municipal, fisheries and environmental uses.
It repeals existing State law for water use in California, establishing a very harmful precedent for other States. It repeals sections 104, 107, 108, 110, 204, and 401 that explicitly waive State law or reclamation law. It repeals historic California water rights and decades of carefully balanced water compromises. It undermines California and other States' abilities to manage its own resources. It overturns nearly 20 years of environmental and conservation protections under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, CVPIA, and the Endangered Species Act, and ignores the best available science demonstrating the negative effects on species. We are, in fact, a species too, the human species.
It repeals the Federal and State agreement on the court-ordered San Joaquin Restoration Settlement Act. It prohibits Federal or State governments from exercising valid water rights in order to conserve, enhance, recover, or otherwise protect any species that is affected by operations of the CVP or State Water Project. It also reallocates water for junior water rights holders in the Central Valley and ignores the needs of southern California and other water users while privatizing a public resource for a select few.
It does not--I repeat--does not create any new water to solve the drought. It completely eliminates the coequal goal of protecting the environment and allowing water deliveries. It eliminates that coequal code. It puts jobs at risk, not only for fishermen but also the economy. It would revert contract renewal terms to 40 years instead of the current 25.
Mr. Chairman, the severity of this legislation benefits a very small group. It does not benefit all of drought-impacted California. It needs the cooperation of a bipartisan solution for all of the State, including southern California.
Water bonds in the past have favored northern California. The levee funding favored the Bay Delta, and H.R. 3964 favors Central Valley farmers only.
Southern California wants and needs to be included in a dialogue and be part of the solution. We are currently in dialogue with the Senators on a drought bill.
Title XVI, which is recycled water, WaterSMART, Republicans have been stonewalling ideas. They are not allowing bills to be given the courtesy of a hearing in the subcommittee or full committee.
The Bureau of Reclamation is working with WaterSMART project funding of only $27.5 million and water recycling project funding, Title XVI, of $21.5 million, with a backlog of $400 million in congressionally approved projects.
Mr. Chairman, I will submit letters in opposition: from the White House, a statement and a veto threat; from the Governor of California, Governor Brown; from the California Department of Natural Resources Secretary John Laird; from California Attorney General Kamala Harris; and from 34 diverse California environmental groups.
The Western States Water Council indicates their opposition has not changed to the provisions that preempt states' rights. The bill will just create more litigation over water and not solve anything. We need to work on a bipartisan basis on putting that forth. H.R. 3964 is not such an attempt. I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 3964.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In closing, we have heard a lot of conversation about what is good and what is not good for my great State of California.
We continue to stress we need to work together. Mr. Bera said that. Mr. Denham says create your own.
Well, I thought this was the House of the people and that we are supposed to be working together. That is why we have such a low ranking in the view of the American public--we continually fight against each other.
We need to sit in dialogue and be able to converse--at least agree on things that are necessary--to be able to help our country back on its feet instead of fighting over what is not necessarily fightable about.
Mr. Hastings, the chairman, talked about the resolutions of past legislation. Like anything else, we don't get information about many of the bills until last minute. I cannot get any hearings on some of my bills, and neither can some of my members get hearings in the subcommittee or the full committee for being able to address some of these issues that have come up on water.
In summary, we have, of course, this bill that repeals historic California water rights; overturns 20 years of environmental and conservation protections; ignores best available science; repeals the court ordered San Joaquin Restoration Settlement Act; preempts California State law; and creates no new water.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter a Statement of Administration Policy:
The administration strongly opposes H.R. 3964, the Emergency Water Delivery Act, because it would not alleviate the effects of California's current drought and would disrupt decades of work that supports building consensus, solutions, and settlements that equitably address some of California's most complex water challenges. California is experiencing severe drought conditions and low reservoir storage. The urgency and seriousness of the situation requires a balanced approach that promotes water reliability and ecosystem restoration.
It ends with:
For these reasons, if the President were presented with H.R. 3964, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this very dangerous precedent for not only my State of California but for the rest of the Nation.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Chairman, my amendment to H.R. 3964 is very, very simple. It is an inconvenient truth, however, that it creates a revenue stream to the Treasury by eliminating an irrigation subsidy which requires irrigators to pay project debt with interest--in other words, ending free taxpayer subsidy since 1902, which has been in place since reclamation was created. It requires that any new water contracts or renewed contracts must reflect the price of water with interest and repay the debt of the project to only the Treasury with interest. This will be of small assistance to balancing our national debt.
When reclamation was established in 1902, it was meant to deliver water to farms with approximately 160 acres. Subsequent congressional action has changed the acreage limitation along with the repayment contract for these projects. So, in 1982, acreage was increased to 960 acres. Congressional action has also made the repayment of project debt interest free for irrigators while municipalities, like my constituents--my water people--and power users pay the required appropriate interest. I wish other State water users were as lucky as these folks.
H.R. 3964 removes the role of the Federal Government in protecting environment and public good. That is not good. If we are removing the role of the Federal Government, then we should also remove the Federal subsidy associated with renewed or new water contracts.
My constituents and anybody else's must fairly and equally repay additional interest on any project, and they have. For over a decade, southern California foresaw needed infrastructure, and many local entities stepped up to the plate and provided some relief. We paid for and constructed new storage facilities, like the Diamond Valley Lake Reservoir, entirely paid for by local groups and without one Federal cent, adding 1 million acres of new storage. This is on top of the investments we have made in title XVI--recycled water, which has only a 25 percent Federal match--which created 680,000 acre-feet in California alone.
Let's end this interest-free subsidy at our taxpayers' expense, at all of America's taxpayers' expense. Eliminating this unfair subsidy will help to cut our deficit, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.
With regard to a statement that was just made on the Bay Delta, it seems that Secretary Babbitt and the Secretary of Natural Resources were the ones who actually passed the Bay Delta Accord, and 3 years were spent by Mr. Garamendi in trying to implement this.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Chairman, we can go on debating the issue, but everybody who takes a loan has to pay interest, and I don't see any reason why since 1902 our irrigators have been singled out for not having to pay that while the power marketing agencies and other water agencies do have to ante up that interest. They do pass it on to the consumer, but the consumer understands why.
We need to be transparent on the issue and be able to let people know really what we are paying for. Yes, we have the lowest priced crops in California, but we must be able to ensure that we let the rest of the Nation know why we need to move forward. The Central Valley Project, the CVP, was $1.78 billion. Only $236 million has been repaid, and $1.45 billion has not been repaid.
Mr. Chairman, I think this is an amendment that is in order so as to begin trying to help balance our budget. We hope that we will get our colleagues to understand that all of us have to hurt a little bit, and I don't see why this does not have the merit that it should, so I urge a ``yes'' vote.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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