[Senate Hearing 116-375]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 116-375

                          PENDING LEGISLATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON 
                            WATER AND POWER

                                 OF THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   on


			S. 2718          S. 4189
			S. 3811          S. 4228
			S. 4188
                               __________

                             JULY 22, 2020

                               __________

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov        
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
40-921                     WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------          
       
               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                    LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming               JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho                RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah                       MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
STEVE DAINES, Montana                BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana              DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
CORY GARDNER, Colorado               MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi        MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona              ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee           CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
                                 ------                                

                    Subcommittee on Water and Power

                        MARTHA McSALLY, Chairman

JOHN BARRASSO                        CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO
JAMES E. RISCH                       RON WYDEN
BILL CASSIDY                         MARIA CANTWELL
CORY GARDNER                         BERNARD SANDERS
LAMAR ALEXANDER

                      Brian Hughes, Staff Director
                     Kellie Donnelly, Chief Counsel
             Lane Dickson, Senior Professional Staff Member
                 Renae Black, Democratic Staff Director
                Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
         Melanie Thornton, Democratic Professional Staff Member
                     Darla Ripchensky, Chief Clerk
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
McSally, Hon. Martha, Subcommittee Chairman and a U.S. Senator 
  from Arizona...................................................     1
Cortez Masto, Hon. Catherine, Subcommittee Ranking Member and a 
  U.S. Senator from Nevada.......................................     2

                               WITNESSES

Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, U.S. Senator from California.............    24
Udall, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from New Mexico....................    80
Bettencourt, Aubrey, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and 
  Science, U.S. Department of the Interior.......................    81
Keppen, Dan, Executive Director, Family Farm Alliance............    93
Whitworth, Joe S., President, The Freshwater Trust...............   113

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

African-American Farmers of California:
    Letter for the Record........................................    29
American AgCredit:
    Letter for the Record........................................    31
American Olive Oil Producers Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    32
American Pistachio Growers:
    Letter for the Record........................................    34
American Sportfishing Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................     7
Association of California Water Agencies:
    Letter for the Record........................................    36
Bettencourt, Aubrey:
    Opening Statement............................................    81
    Written Testimony............................................    83
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   152
California Citrus Mutual:
    Letter for the Record........................................    37
California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    39
California Dairy Campaign and California Farmers Union:
    Letter for the Record........................................    41
California Farm Bureau Federation:
    Letter for the Record........................................    43
California Fresh Fruit Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    45
California Women for Agriculture:
    Letter for the Record........................................    47
Cortez Masto, Hon. Catherine:
    Opening Statement............................................     2
County of Fresno (California):
    Letter for the Record........................................    48
Earthjustice:
    Letter for the Record........................................     9
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne:
    Opening Statement............................................    24
    Figure 1. Damage to water infrastructure: Subsidence along 
      the Delta-Mendota Canal....................................    25
    Figure 2. Damage to water infrastructure: Subsidence along 
      the California Aqueduct....................................    27
    Written Testimony............................................    74
Friant Water Authority:
    Letter for the Record........................................    50
Golden State Salmon Association, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    11
Harris, Hon. Kamala:
    Letter for the Record........................................     5
Harris Farms:
    Letter for the Record........................................    52
Keppen, Dan:
    Opening Statement............................................    93
    Written Testimony............................................    95
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   156
Kern County (California) Water Agency:
    Letter for the Record........................................    54
Kern Groundwater Authority:
    Letter for the Record........................................    55
Mape's Ranch and Lyons' Investments:
    Letter for the Record........................................    56
McSally, Hon. Martha:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
(The) Metropolitan Water District of Southern California:
    Letter for the Record........................................    58
Milk Producers Council:
    Letter for the Record........................................    60
National Audubon Society and Audubon Arizona:
    Letter for the Record........................................    14
National Audubon Society and Audubon New Mexico:
    Letter for the Record........................................    16
Natural Resources Defense Council:
    Letter for the Record........................................    17
(The) Nature Conservancy, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    19
Nisei Farmers League:
    Letter for the Record........................................    61
San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority:
    Letter for the Record........................................    63
South Valley Water Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    65
State Water Contractors:
    Letter for the Record........................................    67
Trout Unlimited:
    Letter for the Record........................................   172
Trout Unlimited, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    21
Udall, Hon. Tom:
    Opening Statement............................................    80
Western Agricultural Processors Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    69
Western Growers:
    Letter for the Record........................................    71
Whitworth, Joe S.:
    Opening Statement............................................   113
    Written Testimony............................................   115
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   161

                               ----------
                               
The text for each of the bills which were addressed in this hearing can 
be found on the committee's website at: https://www.energy.senate.gov/
hearings/2020/7/subcommittee-on-water-and-power-legislative-hearing.

 
                          PENDING LEGISLATION

                              ----------                              

                        WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020

                               U.S. Senate,
                   Subcommittee on Water and Power,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Martha 
McSally, presiding.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTHA MCSALLY, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA

    Senator McSally [presiding]. The hearing of the Senate 
Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power 
will come to order. Sorry for being a few minutes late. It is 
great to see all the women here.
    This marks our first meeting of the Water and Power 
Subcommittee since the COVID-19 outbreak with our new socially-
distanced setup. While it is crucial that we do get back to 
business, we also need to recognize, like so many other areas 
of our economy, the pandemic is impacting our water sector. We 
will hear about some of those impacts at the Full Committee 
hearing tomorrow where I am pleased that there will be a 
witness who will discuss the challenges that our water managers 
are facing. But today, we are here to receive testimony on five 
bills pending before the Subcommittee, including S. 4228, my 
Water-Energy Technology Demonstration and Deployment Act. This 
legislation is a result of information and recommendations we 
received from hearings this Committee has held this Congress, 
as well as continued engagement with water stakeholders in 
Arizona and across the West.
    The Department of Energy is doing a lot of good work on 
water technologies. At the same time, the Bureau of Reclamation 
has programs that support deployment of many of these same 
tools, whether it is water reuse, recycling, or desalination, 
better pumps or some other technology, my bill will help get 
the advancement and expertise developed by the Department of 
Energy (DOE) out of the lab and into the hands of water 
managers where they are needed now. Doing that is a win all the 
way around. It will accelerate commercialization of the 
technology, get a bigger bang for the buck from taxpayer 
dollars being spent by DOE and Reclamation on these solutions, 
and start producing additional water supplies needed by Western 
communities. S. 4228 also establishes a Western Water 
Resilience Center at one or more universities in the West. As 
the universities in Arizona have shown, our academic 
institutions can drive innovation that will not only improve 
water security but will also spur greater development of a 
water technology industry in the U.S. which will create jobs 
and economic growth.
    In addition to S. 4228, we will receive testimony on a 
number of bills that have been introduced by our Democrat 
colleagues, including Senator Udall's S. 2718, Senator 
Feinstein's S. 3811, Senator Harris' S. 4188 and Senator 
Wyden's S. 4189. Each of the bills today contain provisions 
that are important to Western water management. But as we craft 
and review legislation, we must be careful to not intentionally 
or unintentionally put up additional regulatory roadblocks in 
front of much needed water storage or other supply projects. I 
do have some serious concerns with language in some of the 
bills, but I believe there are many elements we can work 
together on and reach bipartisan agreement. When it comes to 
water, we need to resist efforts to drag us back into old 
conflicts or either/or games and focus on solutions the 
Committee has shown can be developed by working constructively 
across party lines.
    In addition to the bills we are reviewing today, there are 
a number of bipartisan bills that have already received 
Committee consideration and are awaiting further action. This 
includes S. 2044, the bill I introduced with Senator Sinema to 
address aging water infrastructure, and S. 1932, that was 
introduced by Senator Gardner and co-sponsored by Senators 
Feinstein, Sinema, Rosen and myself. Combined together, the 
consensus provisions from the bills reviewed and reported by 
this Committee, can and should form the basis of a water 
package that we can and should move this year. I look forward 
to hearing from our witnesses on the five bills before us today 
and working through the remaining issues to enact meaningful 
water legislation this year.
    Now I will hand it over to Senator Cortez Masto.

           STATEMENT OF HON. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA

    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Good afternoon to everyone 
and thank you to Senator McSally for calling this legislative 
hearing. This is the first legislative hearing since the start 
of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I want to thank everyone, 
including our witnesses, for being flexible and adaptable 
during these uncertain times. This Congress, the Energy 
Committee has already reported out six water bills. However, it 
has been just over a year since we have had a legislative 
hearing on water legislation and I welcome the opportunity to 
move another five water bills through the Committee's process 
to help advance legislation that protects our nation's water 
supplies.
    Today's hearing covers a variety of issues facing the 
Bureau of Reclamation, and the bills on today's agenda attempt 
to advance federal water policy to promote drought resiliency 
through forward thinking, collaborative policy solutions. These 
bills also call for investment in more resilient and robust 
infrastructure in surface groundwater and natural storage, 
recycling and reuse, desalination, efficiency and conservation. 
The legislation also highlights the need for greater investment 
in watershed health to benefit our downstream communities, 
fish, and wildlife. Managing our water resources for the future 
means developing smart, collaborative solutions that benefit 
both people and the environment.
    We will start with Senator Udall's bill, S. 2718, also 
known as the Western Water Security Act. This bill aims to 
promote water conservation, desalination and improve water 
management strategies that benefit both water managers and 
ecosystems in New Mexico and other Western states. An important 
aspect of this bill is to expand the Bureau of Reclamation's 
WaterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grant Program to include 
natural infrastructure projects and to allow participation from 
conservation, non-governmental organizations. Among other 
provisions, this bill expands emergency drought assistance for 
states and tribes, supports collaborative water management and 
research efforts and expands federal support for water 
desalination projects, particularly rural projects which can 
really help address water shortages across the arid West.
    Our next agenda item is Senator Feinstein's legislation, 
the Restoration of Essential Conveyance Act. This bill 
authorizes $600 million in federal aid to repair three major 
canal projects in California that have been impacted by land 
subsistence and $200 million for the restoration goal of the 
San Joaquin restoration settlement. Senator Feinstein is here. 
We will hear further on this bill as well.
    We also have Senator Harris' bill, S. 4188, the Water for 
Tomorrow Act. This bill focuses on addressing water management 
through sustainable investments in water infrastructure 
technology improvements and multi-benefit projects that support 
resilient, healthy ecosystems. It also creates a new grant 
program at the Department of the Interior to assist 
disadvantaged communities facing declines in drinking water in 
the arid West.
    Next on the agenda is S. 4189, the Water for Conservation 
and Farming Act, sponsored by Senator Wyden. This bill aims to 
improve water access by funding projects that balance the needs 
of irrigators, fish and wildlife, watershed health and urban 
water users. This bill highlights the importance of investing 
in a balanced approach to water management. I want to thank 
Senator Wyden for emphasizing this in his legislation.
    We will also be discussing, as the Chairwoman has said, 
Chairwoman McSally's bill on water and energy innovations in 
research and technology. I look forward to learning more about 
this bill today as well.
    Let me just say, in order to sustainably manage scarce 
water resources, Congress must listen closely to those who work 
on and deal with these issues in their everyday lives. It may 
be easier to propose policies that pit one part of the economy 
over another or that override protections for the environment, 
but despite the thorny nature of these issues, it is imperative 
that we work together to find sustainable and collaborative 
solutions for our nation's water management challenges. Win-win 
solutions are our only hope of addressing climate change, 
drought and other water issues in the West over the long-term.
    I want to commend the bills' sponsors for their focus and 
attention on water management challenges across the Western 
United States, and I look forward to a productive conversation 
today.
    Chairwoman McSally, I also have a statement from Senator 
Harris on her bill, S. 4188, and letters of support for several 
bills on the agenda and ask that they be included in the 
hearing record.
    Senator McSally. Without objection, they will be included 
in the record.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    [Senator Harris' statement and various letters of support 
follow:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Senator McSally. Thank you, Senator Cortez Masto.
    Before we turn to our panel of outside witnesses, I am 
pleased that we are joined today by Senator Feinstein and 
Senator Udall--Senator Feinstein, in person, and Senator Udall, 
virtually--to speak about the bills they have before the 
Subcommittee.
    Senator Feinstein, thank you for being here, and I would 
also like to express my appreciation for all the work you do to 
find common ground on water issues and advance bipartisan 
legislation. You are now recognized.

              STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA

    Senator Feinstein. Well, thank you very much, Madam 
Chairman.
    Madam Chairman and Madam Ranking Member, thank you for 
inviting me to speak in support of the ``Restoration of 
Essential Conveyance Act.'' California's 40 million people and 
our leading agricultural industry depend on thousands of miles 
of major canals to bring them water. I want to show you how 
desperately our canals need to be repaired.
    This first picture shows what has happened as a result of 
subsidence, where the land has dropped 10, 20 or more feet due 
to over pumping of groundwater. You can see the result--the 
walls of the canal are completely collapsing.
    [Senator Feinstein's Figure 1 follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Feinstein. The second picture shows even longer 
cracks, and the entire side of the canal is caving inwards.
    [Senator Feinstein's Figure 2 follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Madam Chairman, I know you have a bill to restore 
Reclamation's deteriorating infrastructure. S. 3811 has similar 
goals. It would: 1) authorize $200 million each to repair three 
essential canals in California, the Friant Kern Canal, the 
Delta Mendota Canal, and the California Aqueduct; and it would 
2) authorize an additional $200 million for a critical 
environmental project, the San Joaquin River Restoration 
Program.
    I want to put this bill in a larger context affecting 
Arizona and Nevada and the whole West. As you both well know, 
we are facing a severe threat of drought, which a changing 
climate is only going to make worse. The journal, Science, has 
concluded that we may be entering what is actually a 
megadrought, and we face a structural water deficit in the 
Colorado River Basin of approximately 1.2 million to 1.5 
million acre-feet per year. This water deficit is only going to 
get much worse over time. The Bureau of Reclamation has 
projected that the Colorado River Basin's annual water supply 
deficit will be 3.2 million acre-feet by 2060. This projected 
annual deficit is equivalent to the water supply of 16 million 
people. This is a looming crisis, and it is critical that 
Congress develop bipartisan solutions to address it.
    The canal restoration bill advances the types of projects 
that we need to reduce the Colorado Basin's water supply 
deficit. These canal restoration projects will provide 
significant water supply at an affordable cost. The three 
projects together will create an average of 367,000 additional 
acre-feet per year, or enough water for 1.8 million people. The 
new water will cost approximately $250 to $300 per acre-feet, 
about one-half to one-fifth the cost of other water supply 
projects. The federal cost-share will be 50 percent or less 
with water contractors paying the rest. The projects are 
broadly supported and non-controversial.
    Madam Chairman, I would like to ask that these 25 support 
letters be placed in the record.
    Senator McSally. Without objection.
    Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much.
    [Letters of support follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Because these projects are restoring canals damaged by 
subsidence to their original design capacity, they actually 
raise very few environmental issues.
    Finally, the bill not only improves water supply to adapt 
to future droughts, but the bill also authorizes an additional 
$200 million for restoring a salmon run on the San Joaquin 
River, California's longest river. For these reasons, I urge 
the Committee to approve the ``Restoration of Essential 
Conveyance Act'' and I look forward to working with you both--
to the three of you now, two women and one man, which is a 
historic reversal of the ratio--to getting it enacted along 
with other critical water legislation. Thank you so much.
    Senator McSally. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
    [The written statement of Senator Feinstein follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator McSally. Senator Udall, you are now recognized.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

    Senator Udall. Thank you, Chairman McSally and Ranking 
Member Cortez Masto and members of the Subcommittee. And thank 
you for the opportunity to appear before you today in support 
of S. 2718, the Western Water Security Act. In the West we know 
that ``Agua Es Vida, Water is Life.'' Indigenous peoples of the 
West base their lives around access to water and had and still 
have sophisticated strategies and techniques to manage this 
precious resource. In the 16th century in my home State of New 
Mexico, the Spanish settlers, native peoples and other settlers 
began blending traditions from the Old World and the new and 
developed, the acequia systems, that to this day provide water 
to communities for irrigation and for agriculture. They've 
lasted for 400 years.
    In the 20th century, large cities such as Las Vegas and 
modern agricultural communities like the Salt River Project in 
Arizona were born out of the construction of the Bureau of 
Reclamation water projects. Now, in the 21st century, we know 
more about the uncertainty of our water resources. Science 
tells us we built those big water projects based on assumptions 
about water supply and predictability that no longer hold. Our 
climate is changing and the Southwest U.S. will continue to 
experience hotter, drier summers that last longer, leaving 
smaller snowpacks for spring runoff and increased evaporation 
from surface storage from lakes and reservoirs. The Bureau of 
Reclamation and the seven Colorado River Basin states found 
that the Basin-wide imbalance in future supply and demand will 
be 3.2 million acre-feet annually by 2060. On top of that, the 
2000 to 2018 drought in the Southwest was the second driest 19-
year period since 800 CE, exceeded only by the late 1500s 
megadrought. All of this puts more stress on precious 
groundwater resources that, in many cases, are not being 
recharged anywhere near the rate at which they're being drawn 
down. In many cases, we don't even know how much groundwater we 
have.
    These are the facts and it's important for us to talk 
truthfully about the world we now face, particularly when we 
discuss and design programs that invest public money to sustain 
our way of life. Infrastructure investments change the natural 
world around these projects and have long life spans, often 
extending for many decades or more. But the uncertainty of 
water resources driven by climate change, these infrastructure 
investments need to incorporate flexibility like how the 
acequias have operated for generations.
    However, I'm a reservoir half-full type of person. We can 
adapt. We can build smarter and implement an approach that 
takes account of the whole ecosystem. And the bill before you 
today, 
S. 2718, the Western Water Security Act, is a 21st century 
solution and it will move us in the right direction. My bill 
represents a straightforward, commonsense approach based on the 
realities and the science of today, and it is crucial. This is 
a collaborative bill. The entire New Mexico delegation is in 
support and Representative Xochitl Torres Small is co-
sponsoring the bill in the House and that bill has been marked 
up and passed out of Committee.
    The Western Water Security Act also has the support of a 
broad cross section of water users and interest groups, 
including the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, the Middle 
Rio Grande Conservancy District, the State of New Mexico, the 
Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited and 
the National Wildlife Federation.
    So again, Chairman McSally and Ranking Member Cortez Masto, 
thank you for the opportunity to present this important 
legislation. I'll look forward to your support and will be glad 
to follow up at a later date on any issues raised today. Thank 
you so much and I would just ask your permission to exit to my 
next committee, the Foreign Relations Committee. It's been 
great being with you today.
    Senator McSally. Well, thank you, Senator Udall. I like 
your ``reservoir is half-full'' kind of approach there, that 
level of optimism. Thanks for your testimony and your bill. I 
want to thank Senator Feinstein as well and Senator Udall, we 
look forward to working with you both to find a landing place 
that will allow these bills to move forward quickly.
    We will now turn to our panel of outside witnesses.
    Our first witness is Ms. Aubrey Bettencourt, who is the 
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the 
Department of the Interior. She will present the 
Administration's views on five bills before us today. Next, we 
will hear from Dan Keppen, the Executive Director of Family 
Farm Alliance. After Mr. Keppen, we will hear from Joe S. 
Whitworth, President of The Freshwater Trust.
    Thank you all for being with us today. We ask you keep your 
remarks to five minutes. Your full written remarks will be put 
into the record.
    Ms. Bettencourt, you are recognized now for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF AUBREY BETTENCOURT, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 
       WATER AND SCIENCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Ms. Bettencourt. Thank you.
    Chairman McSally, Ranking Member Cortez Masto and members 
of the Subcommittee, my name is Aubrey Bettencourt. I am the 
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the 
Department of the Interior, and I thank you for this time today 
to provide Interior's views on the legislation which affects 
the Bureau of Reclamation and the farms, communities, 
environment it serves. I prepared a written statement on the 
bills before the Committee today but will use my time to 
highlight a few issues.
    The West, as we know and as we've heard, is defined by its 
longstanding water challenges and how it has addressed them in 
the past. As a Westerner, born and raised in rural California, 
with family and friends spread across Arizona, Oregon and the 
West, these challenges and the magnificent solutions of 
infrastructure, science and technology and the changing 
relationship to our most precious resource, have defined me as 
well. My home State of California became the fifth largest 
global economy in less than 100 years because of the water 
systems. Today, the list of water challenges is the same in 
many ways and has changed as our states have grown and evolved, 
now stressing the incredible system that got us here. Drought 
and flood, urban and rural population growth, subsidence, 
groundwater depletion and recharge, urban and rural water 
quality, aging infrastructure, changing environment and 
environmental protection requirements are pressing concerns. 
While the challenges may change from a new era, the basic need 
remains the same. Adequate, safe and reliable water supplies 
are fundamental to the health, economic prosperity and security 
of our communities, farms, environment and nation. How the West 
addresses these challenges, once again, will define its future.
    Cities, communities, water and irrigation districts and 
individuals on the ground are actively investing to get ahead 
of these challenges, meeting them with new and innovative 
solutions as well as tried and true solutions in new and 
improved ways. Investment in the water infrastructure, water 
quality and water supplies of the 21st century is a priority of 
the Administration, the Department of the Interior and the 
Bureau of Reclamation. The tools in the tool kit of Reclamation 
and the Interior such as the WIIN Act Dam Safety Program, the 
suite of programs in WaterSMART, the Cooperative Watershed 
Management Program, the SECURE Water Act, Rural Water Supply 
Program and Title Transfer, along with many others, many of 
which are discussed today, have successfully allowed 
Reclamation to meet, match and partner with diverse customers, 
water users, stakeholders and communities and are critical to 
Reclamation and these parties' ability to prepare for natural 
disaster, addressing aging and undersized infrastructure and 
diversify and expand water supplies for the needs and the 
priorities of the future.
    As important as these partnerships are with our customers 
on the ground, Interior and Reclamation are leading in an 
incredible era of federal collaboration across departments 
within the water sector actively seeking partnerships and 
alignment to focus resources toward solutions to address some 
of the West and the nation's water needs for agriculture, rural 
and disadvantaged communities, investment in traditional and 
new infrastructure, applications of the best available science, 
technology, modeling and forecasting, water quality, drought 
and flood preparedness and all around, better customer service 
in responsiveness for providing and delivering clean, reliable 
water and renewable hydropower. The Bureau and Interior and I 
look forward to working with the Committee and the bill 
sponsors to address any concerns and to better align the 
legislation with the existing commitments by Reclamation to 
maximize the effectiveness of these programs and projects that 
are referenced.
    In closing, I'd like to thank you again for this 
opportunity, and I look forward to our discussion today. It's 
clear that we all agree that investment in our water future is 
a priority, and it's exciting to see that none of us are shying 
away from these challenges because, as Westerners, we know the 
opportunity that water will surprise--will provide us and 
surprise us in the future. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bettencourt follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator McSally. Thank you, Ms. Bettencourt.
    Mr. Keppen, you are now recognized for five minutes.

         STATEMENT OF DAN KEPPEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
                      FAMILY FARM ALLIANCE

    Mr. Keppen. Good afternoon, Chairwoman McSally, Ranking 
Member Cortez Masto and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you 
for this opportunity to address the bills that are before you 
today. The Family Farm Alliance has a long history of 
collaboration with a variety of partners who seek real 
solutions to water resource challenges in the West. One of 
those partners is The Freshwater Trust. I'm honored to be 
testifying today with my good friend, Joe Whitworth, President 
of that organization.
    Some of these bills contain provisions that work well for 
both producers and NGO's, others put the needs of fish, 
wildlife and ecosystems above the interests of our farmers and 
ranchers. The WaterSMART provisions in some of these bills 
raise the most concerns. Our members worry that adding non-
profit conservation organizations as eligible recipients in 
WaterSMART will increase the competition for program grants. We 
were pleased to see Senator Wyden and Senator Merkley address 
this concern. They included a requirement in their bill that 
NGO's partner with a traditional, eligible water delivery 
entity for potential WaterSMART projects.
    The WaterSMART program is accomplishing what it was 
intended to do. It modernizes infrastructure and helps local 
water users better respond to future water conflicts. The only 
consistent complaint we've heard about WaterSMART is that it's 
underfunded and oversubscribed. So we appreciate efforts to 
provide more funding to WaterSMART. We're concerned, however, 
that adding more conditions could actually harm a program that 
really works. It could limit the number of future applicants 
and diminish the benefits that we currently see. We need to 
stick with the original intent of the program and try not to 
add new conditions and processes. Let's not water down 
WaterSMART.
    I'll now briefly address each of the bills before you 
today.
    S. 4188 appears to be well-intended. Section 301 could 
assist our members who are already using emerging technologies 
to provide more accurate and timely snowpack measurement data. 
There are several other areas of the bill that cause concerns, 
though, as detailed in my written testimony.
    Senator Wyden's S. 4189, importantly, reauthorizes the 
Fisheries Restoration and Irrigation Mitigation Act which our 
members in the Pacific Northwest strongly support and benefit 
from. This program provides federal cost-shared funding for 
voluntary efforts to improve fish passage while maintaining a 
steady, reliable water supply for human use. S. 4189 also 
authorizes funds for important Reclamation water reuse, 
recycling and conservation programs.
    We support the Water-Energy Technology Demonstration and 
Deployment Act which improved the efficiency of projects like 
the Yuma Desalting Plant in Arizona.
    Our New Mexico members are strongly supportive of S. 2718; 
however, we also have members in our other states who have 
concerns. They are worried about using federal grants to reduce 
consumptive use of water, including water conservation 
acquisitions. Our organization has consistently taken the 
position that conservation programs, the Farm bill, for 
example, should not be used to pay farmers not to farm. We also 
believe that the best solutions to Western water challenges are 
developed at the local level. In this case, seed money from the 
Federal Government will help our New Mexico members develop a 
groundwater management scheme that could result in a voluntary 
fallowing program. This could benefit the farmer and urban 
water users in this region.
    S. 3811, by Senator Feinstein, is a welcome step toward 
addressing the impacts of groundwater subsidence on major 
portions of California's water delivery system. The bill 
authorizes $600 million in federal cost-shared funding for 
three major projects. Subsidence in these areas has reduced the 
carrying capacity of those canal systems. Many of our 
California producers would directly benefit from this 
legislation.
    In addition to bills discussed today, we need legislation 
that addresses aging water infrastructure and insufficient 
water storage. Over 160 Western water and agricultural 
organizations recently wrote to Senate leaders urging the same. 
That large number of groups speaks to the critical demand that 
Westerners feel for addressing these issues in this Congress. 
The reasons are clear. Water infrastructure that was built 
early in the last century is aging. Meanwhile, less progress 
has been made at the federal level on these matters developing 
new and improved water infrastructure. We need these projects 
to keep up with the growing water demands of the West.
    We strongly support Senator McSally's S. 2044, a bill that 
would establish a revolving loan account to address 
extraordinary maintenance backlogs within Reclamation-owned 
facilities. Failing to address the backlog in the short-term 
could well lead to dealing with it in the long-term in a much 
more expensive and costly manner. We also need to extend water 
infrastructure funding provisions in the WIIN Act which are set 
to expire in 2021. We continue to support the bipartisan S. 
1932 which extends funding under the WIIN Act for an additional 
five years, including $670 million for surface and groundwater 
storage projects.
    We look forward to working with this Committee on a 
bipartisan, Bureau of Reclamation legislative package that may 
be considered in the future. Thank you again for this 
opportunity to testify.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Keppen follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator McSally. Thank you, Mr. Keppen.
    Mr. Whitworth, you are now recognized for five minutes.

           STATEMENT OF JOE S. WHITWORTH, PRESIDENT, 
                      THE FRESHWATER TRUST

    Mr. Whitworth. Thank you, Chairwoman McSally, Ranking 
Member Cortez Masto and members of the Subcommittee. My name is 
Joe Whitworth, President of The Freshwater Trust. With 50 
scientists, coders, implementers, lawyers and ag economists, 
we're a non-profit ``do-tank'' focused on leveraging technology 
and finance in new ways to solve legacy water problems. At the 
intersection of the economy and the environment, we have 
developed a quantified conservation approach to work with 
landowners, agencies, utilities and other partners to get 
conservation done on the ground, in the right places, in the 
right amount, on an expedited basis. I really appreciate the 
opportunity to testify today regarding the bills before you, 
and I will summarize here but put the testimony in the record.
    Technology now exists to identify and target specific 
actions that improve watershed health, invest taxpayer dollars 
well and secure good water in all of our communities. 
Leveraging these tools will enable us to create durable jobs in 
rural economies and increase resilience in the face of change. 
Several of the bills before this Committee include steps in the 
right direction on these fronts toward data-informed 
investments, and these should be pursued and extended. Solving 
our water problems on a meaningful timeframe requires that we 
accelerate and focus restoration funding while producing the 
best environmental outcomes for the least cost coordinated by 
analytics, standardized accounting and quantified results. The 
first step is understanding within a watershed-wide basis, 
where we need to work, how much it will cost and what we'll 
get. In short, we need price tags, we need finish lines and we 
need the ability to coordinate and mobilize resources toward 
those ends.
    Slow and uncertain application cycles often keep landowners 
with the most critical lands and the smartest farm upgrades 
from ever participating or ever realizing the benefits that 
they could have. It's a massive, massive missed opportunity 
because not all restoration is created equal and simply 
authorizing bigger spends won't improve the results. We need 
better spends, and that's why I'm here today.
    A quick example: a small, subwatershed in the Columbia 
River Basin representing about 1.7 percent of the land mass 
actually has a fairly outsized impact on downstream water 
quality due to runoff. We used publicly available data, 
federally approved model formulas and advanced technologies to 
run the entire basin and understand what it is we had on our 
hands. Of the 4,100 agricultural fields, less than 1,500, 
actually less than half, had any environmental benefit 
whatsoever regardless of investment. And so, here are the 
biggest gains come from on farm upgrades of irrigation in order 
to decrease runoff. They also improve farm profitability, but 
here's the big takeaway when we're talking about spending 
correctly. Of those, the original price tag of all the 4,100 
fields took about $150 million but at a cost of $24 million 
working on only 190 of those fields, we can knock down about 63 
percent of the nitrogen running off in those, in that system. 
And that's what it's going to take in order to solve problems 
versus spend on problems.
    In addition to undertaking the right actions in the right 
places, we need to track and report results in rigorous and 
standardized ways at a watershed level, not simply a project 
level. The Freshwater Trust, of course, supports funding for 
environmental restoration in these bills. Those extensions and 
additions are very welcome. However, we need something more 
beyond that, we need better ones. If there is one common theme 
throughout these that we really needed to pay attention to as 
we go forward and develop a water package, it is to really 
understand that there is a need for a standardized accounting 
system that understands what our actions do before we do them 
so that we can seek optimal outcomes that perform at a 
watershed basis as opposed to a maximal outcome at a project 
level basis.
    With that, I would like to thank you again for allowing me 
to testify and look forward to any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Whitworth follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator McSally. Great, thank you. We will now turn to 
questions and I will kick it off.
    We have discussed the energy-water nexus a number of times 
in this Subcommittee, and I know the Ranking Member, Senator 
Cortez Masto, has an important bill on that issue. Since the 
beginning of President Trump's Administration, we have also 
heard a lot about a so-called ``Water Subcabinet'' which has a 
more water-centric focus in its efforts to increase 
coordination among agencies--DOE, DOI and other agencies. My 
water technology bill aims to build off those efforts.
    Ms. Bettencourt, can you talk a bit more about some of the 
work being done by the Water Subcabinet and how the Bureau of 
Reclamation projects could benefit from resources brought to 
bear by DOE, and also how the pilot program established in S. 
4228 could help facilitate that work?
    Ms. Bettencourt. Absolutely.
    First of all, Senator, thank you so much for recognizing 
the informal entity that is quote/unquote, ``the Water 
Subcabinet.'' When I spoke about leading in this kind of new 
era of federal collaboration, that's exactly what we're talking 
about. Very simply put, what the Water Subcabinet does is it's 
the power of convention. There's no new budget attached to it. 
There's no new authorities attached to it. It is alignment of 
the water sector across multiple departments. And in the power 
of that convention, of regularly communicating to each other, 
regularly understanding each other's priorities and 
initiatives, cross-training and understanding each other's 
programs, we start looking at every problem, not through our 
own lens of our own issues that we bring to the table or our 
own programs we bring to the table. We now have these other 
points of reference that we can now draw into and align those 
resources and, kind of, supercharge solutions.
    And so, when we look at the options that you have brought 
forward, you know, especially with the Department of Energy, 
there is, I think, an amazing opportunity to, just like you 
said, get pilot to lab, get technologies and applicable 
technologies and resources into the hands of our water 
managers, get them out on the field, get them out on the ground 
so we can see the application and modernization happen in real 
time. And that's definitely something that we appreciate with 
an emphasis of bringing support to aligning DOE with 
Reclamation. I think there's a lot of opportunity in that 
space, not only in what you were talking about with regards to 
water supply opportunities, but even in the hydropower space. I 
think there's a lot of opportunity there and alignment with the 
Department of Energy as we start to get those pieces in place.
    Senator McSally. Great, thanks.
    Our universities in Arizona have tremendous expertise on 
water. So also in my bill is bringing in university research 
and establishing the Western Water Resilience Center at one or 
more universities. Can you share what you think the benefit 
would be of the collaboration with research universities on 
this important topic?
    Ms. Bettencourt. You know, especially research universities 
that are out on the ground, at least in my experience, is when 
you can get them again, you get those technologies applied. You 
better know how the investment is going to go or where to focus 
your investment when you can get them in real life 
applications. And so, being out in the West, being out on those 
universities in the West to bring in the resources and 
expertise and collaboration, not only from the university 
sector and research sector, but also that lab tech concept out 
of DOE and that water wielding engineering expertise that 
Reclamation brings to the table, we get that out on the ground 
and see what we can do with it.
    Senator McSally. Great, thank you.
    One reason I introduced S. 4228 is because I speak with 
water managers all the time. They are working hard to find 
resources to implement many of the things DOE is doing R&D on. 
I mentioned in my opening things like recycling and energy 
efficiency, but we have also seen initiatives and things like 
fish passage and other matters.
    Mr. Keppen and Mr. Whitworth, can you talk about some of 
the challenges you hear from the water sector in deploying 
water technology and how tapping into resources like at the 
Department of Energy might be able to help?
    Let's go to Mr. Keppen first.
    Mr. Keppen. Sure, thanks.
    Well, there's lots of opportunities in the West, I think 
for example, to utilize tainted waters that are brackish or 
salty and apply some of this new treatment technology to make 
that water useable, if not drinkable. In some areas in the 
Rocky Mountain West there's potential to use the produced 
waters that are associated with natural gas development. Use 
some of this new screening and treatment technology and bring 
it up to a point where you can maybe use it to irrigate 
pastures instead of reinjecting that water back into the 
ground. So it's essentially adding new water to the system. I 
think having DOE technology and funding employed in conjunction 
with Reclamation could be beneficial.
    Senator McSally. Thank you.
    Mr. Whitworth. Chairwoman McSally, you know, I think 
getting new technologies to market has several ingredients that 
we really need to pay attention to and one of those things 
includes, you know, the purchase of outcomes or the rewarding 
of outcomes by the private sector. And so, I think putting the 
dollars that are being spent from the federal level in a 
position of purchasing outcomes will actually provide market 
forces to draw those technologies in. That's where I would see 
quite a bit of synergy between your bill, the Resilience Center 
and taking good ideas to market.
    I think there are a couple of other things that are, I 
would just touch on. You know, the barriers to entry for actors 
is real. And so, I think, finding the coordination among 
federal agencies to be able to remove those barriers and 
accelerate toward outcomes is going to be really welcomed. And 
I think that applies not just to the Department of Energy but 
across the administrative apparatus. And finally, I think it's 
really important to talk about not effort, but outcomes. We do 
quite a bit of work with the Bonneville Power Administration 
which spends about a $250 million each year on fish and 
wildlife mitigation efforts. And despite full generation nearly 
of effort, we're not terribly close to recovering any of the 
listed species under the Endangered Species Act. And I think 
there is a way to get ahead of this and I think it does have to 
do with requiring and rewarding outcomes.
    Senator McSally. Great, thank you.
    Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Chairwoman, I know Senator Ron Wyden 
has joined us and he has a bill and has not had a chance to 
speak. So I would defer to him and ask my questions after he 
has had the opportunity to ask his questions.
    Senator McSally. Absolutely.
    Senator Wyden.
    Senator Wyden. I thank my good friend from Nevada for her 
thoughtfulness and both of you for scheduling the hearing.
    I have a piece of legislation on the calendar, S. 4189, the 
Water for Conservation and Farming Act. What we try to do is 
build on existing programs and then provide new tools to 
expand, improve and repair water conservation infrastructure, 
pipes and sprinklers, and do it with a focus on reducing water 
use and improving fish and wildlife habitat and try to make 
farming more efficient. Obviously, farmers and ranchers are 
very conscientious right now about the resources they use. We 
are all Westerners. We know that especially water is the life 
blood of the West and right now in Oregon 35 out of 36 counties 
are seeing at least some level of drought. And of course, with 
climate change causing uncharacteristic weather events, we, as 
a country, have to be mindful about using precious resources. 
So Senate bill 4189 seeks to address those concerns.
    Dan Keppen, why don't we start with you? It is great to 
have you here again. You have put enormous sweat equity into 
the Basin over the years and we have been through lots of tough 
battles together, and we are so grateful for your help on 
drafting S. 4189. Several of the bills we are reviewing today 
make changes to WaterSMART by expanding program eligibility to 
non-profits. There may be some challenges making sure we can 
address concerns for farmers and ranchers because we want to 
make sure because they are currently eligible for funds. They 
are being taken care of. You and I have worked on this 
specifically.
    Can you talk, for example, about how S. 4189 responds to 
your members?
    Mr. Keppen. Sure Senator, and thank you for your 
leadership. It's been 20 years you and I have been working 
together starting in the Klamath Basin.
    So right now the WaterSMART program, again, we believe it 
works, particularly when you look at what's happening in 
Central Oregon, [ . . . ] What your bill does is it says 
conservation groups are welcome to apply, but they need to do 
it in partnership with a local water entity that has that 
authority to deliver water. So they work together and our 
experience shows that those sorts of partnerships really lead 
to creative solutions with broad community and political 
support.
    Senator Wyden. Great.
    Mr. Keppen. Thank you.
    Senator Wyden. Real quickly, and we look forward to working 
with you.
    Our next Oregonian, Joe Whitworth, with The Freshwater 
Trust, has done terrific work all the way through the West, 
especially in Oregon. They look at multi-benefit water 
conservation projects and it helps farmers, improves habitat 
for salmon and wildlife. Joe, can you walk through some of the 
provisions of S. 4189 that would help Freshwater Trust ensure 
that the water projects that are proceeding on the ground 
generate maximum amount of environmental benefits for the least 
amount of cost?
    Mr. Whitworth. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate the time 
and the effort to figure out an integrated way to look at water 
management in the West. Certainly we can't do one thing without 
the other and for 4189's part, one of the sections of the bill 
that we like the most, of course, is Section 204(b) which 
establishes a grant program and prioritizes the multi-benefit 
projects that hold the design implementation and monitoring of 
outcomes of habitat improvements. We think that is an 
incredibly good step forward, and we also think that it can be 
improved just a little bit to get into more quantified outcomes 
simply because we don't want this to become a box-checking 
exercise in the same way that some green infrastructure 
projects that we've seen with programs like SRF and others have 
become. So I think there's--it's a great platform to build upon 
and really do appreciate the time and the effort.
    Senator Wyden. We will work closely with both of you. I 
want to thank Senator Cortez Masto, again, for the favor of 
letting me go, and Chair McSally, I very much appreciate the 
hearing and look forward to working as we always have in this 
Committee in a bipartisan way to address resources issues. I 
thank you both.
    Senator McSally. Okay.
    Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Mr. Whitworth, this first question is for you. I want to 
discuss the Bureau of Reclamation's WaterSMART program, a 
program that stands for Sustain and Manage America's Resources 
for Tomorrow. This program was developed to assist local 
communities in stretching their limited water resources and 
help communities alleviate conflicts over water and expand our 
management approaches to promote water conservation and 
ecological resiliency.
    There are two bills on the agenda today, S. 2718 and S. 
4189, which expand this program to include participation from 
conservation, non-governmental organizations, or the non-
profits I believe that you talked about, and to fund 
groundwater storage and natural infrastructure projects. Now I 
understand there's, maybe, disagreements on the impacts of 
these proposed changes, but what I want to discuss is the 
potential benefits of investing in natural infrastructure 
projects.
    So Mr. Whitworth, why is it important for that investment 
in natural infrastructure projects?
    Mr. Whitworth. Thank you, Ranking Member Cortez Masto. I 
think that is an excellent question. You know, the way I would 
approach that is the natural infrastructure is our first and 
best insurance policy in protecting our local economies and 
local ecosystems as well as the built infrastructure 
investments that we're undertaking. And so, I think that, you 
know, as you've heard me say before and as I will probably say 
again, you know, the integrated nature of addressing these 
problems at the watershed level is really going to be crucial 
to determining our success over time. Of course, I mean, at a 
basic level we do need to upgrade our delivery systems. We do 
need to increase the efficiency at point of use. We also need 
to protect and ensure, through the use of natural 
infrastructure, that can be, all of the functionality can be 
quantified now in a way that we don't have to get into box-
checking game of saying, hey, we built a wetland, or hey, we 
added some more water. We can look at those things not for what 
they are, but for what they do.
    How many tons of sediment do not get into the stream? How 
many pounds of phosphorus or nitrogen? How many kilocalories 
per day of shading benefit can get into the system and actually 
address problems?
    So if we can figure out how to coordinate on all of those 
pieces and, again, it does come down to the ability to have the 
same discussion with common understood accounting across the 
agencies as opposed to various interpretations across agencies 
that can be litigated, we can actually bring the full weight 
and force of the resources that we have to get to the positive 
things within the, within a watershed. And that ultimately 
comes down to local economy security, food supply security, 
ecosystem benefit and water for good. That's really what we are 
in pursuit of across all of these bills. A natural 
infrastructure is a central component that has been largely 
kept separate from the discussion, and we need to integrate it 
into the discussion and our decision-making factors.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Ms. Bettencourt, did you have a comment on that question as 
well?
    Ms. Bettencourt. You know, we have a lot of opportunity 
within the program to collaborate and, I think, talk to that 
alignment just in hearing Joe's comments there, and I think 
what would be a good example of that is it's something that 
we've tried, it's worked, and we're going to continue to work 
that. I think there's a lot of opportunity in aligning the 
different departments angle on that would be in WaterSMART. The 
benefit for agriculture, if they're enrolled in an EQIP program 
with NRCS. There's a scoring bump that demonstrates that 
benefit that comes across as vice versa. If an EQIP applicant 
also is within an area that has a WaterSMART grant, we're 
acknowledging and aligning these programs in a way that 
hopefully can encourage more of this and I think there's more 
to that as we continue to explore it. And we're excited to, I 
think, work with the new technologies and development that I'm 
hearing out of private sector and especially those on-the-
ground partnerships. We want to make sure we're driving and 
meeting our partners in that as well.
    So as we are catching up and evolving from the new place 
we're standing, we need to make sure that our programs are 
evolving and catching up with that as well.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    I know I am running out of time. I will give it back to the 
Chairwoman, and we will go in another round. I am assuming we 
are going to have other rounds of questions?
    Senator McSally. Yes, we are going to have one more round.
    Senator Cortez Masto. All right.
    Senator McSally. Okay, thank you.
    Mr. Keppen, as you mentioned, several of the bills in this 
hearing would authorize and amend the WaterSMART program. I 
agree this has been a successful program over a decade and, 
while I'm open to improvements if appropriate, it is certainly 
important that we don't unintentionally discourage good 
conservation projects or make the program overly cumbersome.
    Ms. Bettencourt, can you discuss the selection of 
WaterSMART projects and how Reclamation looks at multi-benefit 
projects?
    Ms. Bettencourt. Absolutely. I think the selection of 
WaterSMART projects starts when we send out the funding notice, 
the opportunity for funding. When we're very clear on whatever 
the goal of that segment is, how we're scoring it, what the 
applicants know up front we're looking for in order to see 
applications that have the best chance or best opportunity are 
going to be analyzed on the best way that they are hitting 
their mark in that funding space for that intended purpose 
under WaterSMART.
    And so, as you break down through that, those applications 
are then, they're evaluated based on those criteria by a panel 
of experts and naturally multi-benefit projects score higher. 
You know, a good example of that is if we're looking at some of 
our grant criteria under the water supply or liability 
criteria, it's worth 18 points. You know, the weight of the 
points on our multi-benefit projects increases exponentially. 
So naturally, those projects, we're looking for them. They're 
going to score well. We're trying to be up front with our 
applicants so they know that as well.
    Senator McSally. Great, thank you.
    Mr. Keppen, I want to turn to infrastructure. Several of 
the bills before us include mechanisms to fund certain aspects 
of water infrastructure. As referenced in your testimony, S. 
2044 and S. 1932 have also been considered by this Subcommittee 
to address water infrastructure investment. Looking across the 
various bills that are out there, what are the most important 
aspects of water infrastructure that need attention right now, 
what factors are important for us to consider to make sure 
federal investments result in programs that actually work out 
there?
    Mr. Keppen. Well, yes, thank you, Madam Chair.
    And you know, as I mentioned in my testimony, our 
organization has always been about looking for a suite of 
demand management actions and supply enhancement actions. And 
so, today a lot of the bills that we've been talking about sort 
of focus on demand management types of things, and in recent 
decades a lot of the focus in Congress has been on those sorts 
of projects. We strongly believe that, you know, equal or even 
greater emphasis must be placed on fixing our aging storage and 
conveyance facilities and building new storage and conveyance 
facilities.
    There's a need for additional federal funding for loans 
from the Bureau of Reclamation under P.L. 111-11 authorities to 
our member irrigation districts. These local entities have huge 
and immediate repair and rehabilitation needs on their 
federally-owned canals, for example, and water delivery 
structures. We worked with our members here in the last few 
months and developed a list of over 200 projects that we could 
probably start working on immediately and, if they only had 
some funding opportunities. So I think the direct funding of 
long-term repayment provisions provided by P.L. 111-11 and 
amplified in your bill, S. 2044, provides a good approach to 
allow Reclamation to work with local operators to get that work 
done on the ground.
    We also need new funding to kick-start new water storage, 
water recycling and reuse, desal projects that are currently 
being studied or that are ready for construction through the 
WIIN Act and other authorities. And programs that fund water 
conservation--fish passage, habitat restoration--all these are 
in support of water project operations in Reclamation states 
are needed. We need additional funding to accelerate the 
construction of these ready-to-go infrastructure projects as 
well.
    So again, I strongly feel and our organization feels that 
S. 1932, a bipartisan extension of the WIIN Act, and your S. 
2044 are key packages that need to be wrapped in to any sort of 
legislative package that goes through this Committee.
    Senator McSally. Great, thank you. I appreciate it.
    Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Mr. Whitworth and Mr. Keppen, Western rivers provide 
important benefits to rural communities, the West's recreation 
economy, and fish and wildlife habitat. Our rivers and aquifers 
also provide critical water supplies for cities, irrigated 
farmland and tribes. In the Colorado River Basin, more than 40 
million people in seven states rely on this river and for its 
water. In the Basin, these waters irrigate over five million 
acres of ranch and farmland that provide food across the 
country. Many reservoirs in the Colorado River Basin are at 
historic lows. Lake Mead is one of them, in Nevada, and we are 
in a 19-year drought and it is growing. Diminished stream flows 
now pose serious challenges for cities, farms, wildlife, 
recreation.
    So let me ask both of you, what else should we be thinking 
about here in Congress to ensure water supplies are resilient 
to drought and the impacts of climate change?
    Mr. Whitworth. Ranking Member Cortez Masto, I might take a 
first cut at that one.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    Mr. Whitworth. I think, as I noted earlier on in my 
testimony, you know, natural infrastructure is really the 
underlying insurance policy here. We have within the Western 
United States and certainly within the Colorado Basin, we have 
freshwater ecosystems whose functionality has been drastically 
changed over time for several reasons. But where we're at right 
now is we have to understand that in every case, in every 
instance here, what we're talking about is, you know, capturing 
water that falls from the sky, storing it and then releasing it 
later. And we, of course, can do that by mechanical and built 
means, but it turns out that nature can do that on a fairly 
understandable schedule.
    And so, there it's not just a simple matter of doing one 
more storage project or 1,000 more storage projects. We have to 
do these things in conjunction with natural infrastructure 
storage that happens in places like wet meadows, in flood 
plains and, you know, working with irrigators to upgrade their 
works to essentially, you know, save some of the water that 
they could be spending while actually making a little more 
money. We can do that in a much more targeted way if we take 
the time to engage the actionable insights that are afforded to 
us now, you know, with 13,000 satellites that circle the Earth 
every 90 minutes. So I think figuring out where to go and do 
those things on a specific basis with specific outcomes will 
enable us to fill up those reservoirs and deliver better and 
more reliable water over time in the face of climate change.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Anyone else?
    Mr. Keppen. Sure.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Sure.
    Mr. Keppen. Ranking Member, I, first of all, Colorado River 
Basin is something that our organization spends a lot of time 
on. We've got members in all states of the Colorado River Basin 
and so it's, we've got lots of views on what's happening there, 
even sometimes within the same state, sometimes even within the 
same watershed.
    But to get to your question about, you know, what could 
Congress do to, sort of, address water supplies and impacts of 
climate change? We were actually one of the first organizations 
that put together a climate change report back in 2007 and it 
wasn't a pleasant experience, let me tell you, because there 
was some resistance met with some of our membership. But we did 
that and our report includes lots of recommendations that go to 
the questions that you're asking. But relative to what I 
testified on today, one of those things is we need to modernize 
our infrastructure so we can capture water. And one of the 
things that we're seeing throughout the West, just anecdotally, 
is the snowpack is melting faster and it's coming off earlier 
in larger quantities and we're having longer growing seasons. 
So again, if we can make sure that our infrastructure can 
properly capture that water and have flexibility to move it 
around, that's one way of mitigating some of the climate change 
impacts that are happening to our Western watersheds.
    We're also working with a group called Solutions from the 
Land and the North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance 
to advance these and sort of other ideas that are out there to 
the international climate discussions that are going on right 
now.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    I just have one more question on a separate subject--this 
is on S. 3811. Ms. Bettencourt, in your testimony on S. 3811 
you cited certain concerns regarding funding commitments to 
existing infrastructure. Can you describe what you mean by 
that?
    Ms. Bettencourt. I think you're referencing, Senator, a 
question that it prompts quite well which is looking at, kind 
of, the traditional mechanisms by which Reclamation finances a 
lot of its infrastructure projects, similar to the ones that 
were outlined in the bill. If you're thinking about the 
beneficiary pays concept that's embodied very well in the WIIN 
Act as well as our repayment contract concepts. But I think 
what's important to focus on with 3811 is the projects named 
and the increased emphasis on investment in our conveyance 
projects and our aging infrastructure is absolutely a priority 
that matches ours. So it's one of those things where we'd like 
to spend more time working with the bill's author to try to 
bring some of these things into alignment, because I don't want 
to lose the forest for the trees here. This is a priority for 
us. These projects are a priority for us. We want to make sure 
this works out well, so we need the intent.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Ms. Bettencourt. Thank you.
    Senator McSally. Well, I want to thank all of our witnesses 
for your testimony on our bills.
    Questions may be submitted for the record before the close 
of business on Thursday, and the record will remain open for 
two weeks.
    With that, thank you again and the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:42 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

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