Western Water and American Food Security Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, this bill will immediately proceed to final passage as amended.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment is simple. It ensures that we have safe drinking water for our constituents and enough water to fight wildfires.

It has been hot and dry in California. We are now in the fourth straight year of drought conditions; and, in fact, 95 percent of our State has reached severe drought status. This is a problem.

We are talking about families; we are talking about farmers, small-business owners who are feeling the pain of this prolonged drought every day. It is a crisis, and in a crisis, everyone has to come together, to work together to find solutions that work for all of us.

However, the bill offered today, yet again, undermines the efforts that were taken in California to work together, and instead, it allows Washington, D.C., politicians to pick winners and losers and pit communities against each other. This bill creates no water. It does not solve this crisis, and that is a problem.

Look at this picture. This is my home district, Folsom Lake. This is what it looked like last summer, and this summer, it is worse. In fact, Folsom Lake right now is at 42 percent of capacity. By August, it is expected to reach the lowest point in recorded history. Over half a million people depend on Folsom Lake for their drinking water.

We owe it to the families of Folsom, Fair Oaks, Roseville, and all across the State to work together to better manage the water that we have. As currently written, this bill would jeopardize their access to safe water. As water supplies decrease, residential drinking water risks contamination from higher concentrations of nitrates, arsenic, industrial chemicals, and harmful algae
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We owe it to the people in our State to make sure, when they turn on their taps, they have safe drinking water. Let's work together to find comprehensive solutions, long-term solutions to ensure their access to storage. We have got to work together as Democrats and Republicans, not pit northern California against southern California. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to give this motion their full support.

I yield to the gentleman from southern California (Mr. Peters), my colleague.

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