[Senate Hearing 118-344]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 118-344

                   DROUGHTS, DOLLARS, AND DECISIONS:
                          WATER SCARCITY IN A
                            CHANGING CLIMATE

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              May 22, 2024

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]           


                            www.govinfo.gov
                            
                                __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-998                       WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

               SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
               
PATTY MURRAY, Washington             CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California             MIKE LEE, Utah

                   Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
        Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                   Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk 
                  Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2024
                        
                OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                   Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman.............................     1
    Prepared Statement...........................................    30
Senator Charles E. Grassley......................................     3
    Prepared Statement...........................................    32

                    STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Senator Ben Ray Lujan............................................    19
Senator Chris Van Hollen.........................................    20
Senator Mitt Romney..............................................    23
Senator Roger Marshall...........................................    25
Senator Alex Padilla.............................................    26

                               WITNESSES

Hon. Tanya Trujillo, Water Policy Advisor to the Governor, and 
  Deputy State Engineer, New Mexico..............................     7
    Prepared Statement...........................................    34
Mr. Adel Hagekhalil, General Manager and Chief Executive Officer, 
  The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.........     8
    Prepared Statement...........................................    42
Mr. Kevin Richards, Farmer and Managing Partner, RB Ag...........    10
    Prepared Statement...........................................    49
Dr. Michael Castellano, William T. Frankenberger Professorship in 
  Soil Science, Iowa State University............................    12
    Prepared Statement...........................................    52
Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, 
  University of Colorado Boulder.................................    14
    Prepared Statement...........................................    60

                                APPENDIX

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
    Hon. Trujillo................................................    73
    Dr. Castellano...............................................    75
    Dr. Pielke...................................................    78
Statement submitted for the Record by Senator Charles E. Grassley    81
Document submitted for the Record by Mr. Kevin Richards..........    83
Statement submitted for the Record by WateReuse Association......   215

 
                   DROUGHTS, DOLLARS, AND DECISIONS:
                          WATER SCARCITY IN A
                            CHANGING CLIMATE

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2024

                                           Committee on the Budget,
                                                       U.S. Senate,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in 
the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Whitehouse, Merkley, Van Hollen, Lujan, 
Padilla, Grassley, Romney, Marshall, Braun and R. Scott.
    Also present: Democratic staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff 
Director; Matthew Bolden, Climate Policy Advisory; Emily 
Caffrey, American Nuclear Society Fellow.
    Republican staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director; 
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Jordan Pakula, Professional 
Staff Member; Ryan Flynn, Budget Analyst.
    Witnesses:
    The Honorable Tanya Trujillo, Water Policy Advisor to the 
Governor, and Deputy State Engineer, New Mexico
    Mr. Adel Hagekhalil, General Manager and Chief Executive 
Officer, The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
    Mr. Kevin Richards, Farmer and Managing Partner, RB Ag
    Dr. Michael Castellano, William T. Frankenberger 
Professorship in Soil Science, Iowa State University
    Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., Professor, College of Arts and 
Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

          OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
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    \1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the 
appendix on page 30.
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    Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning, everyone. I'll call this 
hearing of the Senate Budget Committee to order. Let me begin 
by expressing condolences to my distinguished ranking member 
for the loss of life in Iowa when a tornado that was described 
as apocalyptic touched down and caused considerable death and 
destruction. Today we have a different topic----
    Senator Grassley. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Yes, sir. We address how climate 
change is making droughts more severe which magnifies so many 
of the other risks that we've talked about in this committee. 
Climate change exacerbates the severity of droughts. Major 
agricultural regions like the American West and the 
Mediterranean are seeing less precipitation.
    Many places around the world are whiplashed by wild swings 
between drought and deluge. Almost everywhere is experiencing 
increased heat. The most straightforward of these is increased 
heat.
    Hotter weather means higher demand for water, to drink, to 
support agriculture, even to cool power plants. But without 
cold winters, less snowfall accumulates in mountains and 
there's less runoff into streams, rivers, and watersheds during 
the summer months. Snowpack across the American West is down 
almost 25 percent since 1955.
    As temperatures go up, the pace of water returning to the 
atmosphere from soils and plants also goes up. Global warming 
is turbocharging evaporation and transpiration. Without water, 
the agricultural industry suffers. Manufacturing slows. 
Communities empty out. And real estate values can plummet.
    The costs of running out of water can be existential. Since 
1980, 31 droughts have cost the nation, an average of 11.6 
billion dollars each in physical and economic damages notably 
not counting loss of life and other nonmonetary harms. But the 
true costs of drought are more systemic and amplify dangers 
this committee has heard about.
    Hot, dry weather increases the risk of wildfires. These 
fires along with climate-driven flood risks are creating an 
insurance crisis that The Economist says could cause a 25 
trillion-dollar hit to global property values. This was their 
cover article two issues ago, and I commend to anyone who is 
interested.
    Worsening droughts threaten national security. Droughts 
have contributed to conflict and instability in Syria, 
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The United Nations 
estimates the 1.84 billion people worldwide, nearly a quarter 
of humanity, lived under drought conditions between 2022 and 
2023, the vast majority in low- and middle-income countries. 
Droughts also jeopardize some of the world's most important 
waterways and reduce food production, raising prices in grocery 
aisles.
    Years of drought depleted the Panama Canal, cutting ship 
traffic in this major thoroughfare by nearly 40 percent. An 
intense Mediterranean drought caused global olive oil prices to 
rise 130 percent in 2023. The former executive director of 
agri-giant Cargill warned that as a result of climate change, 
and I'm quoting him here, ``U.S. production of corn, soybeans, 
wheat, and cotton could decline by 14 percent by mid-century 
and by as much as 42 percent by late century.''
    Our infrastructure, the foundation of our economy, is also 
harmed. Glen Canyon Dams electric power generating 
infrastructure has been damaged by low water levels. New and 
expanded reservoirs, channels, even desalinization plants could 
be needed to make up water loss. Much of this infrastructure 
will likely be funded by the federal government.
    And more infrastructure means higher capital and operating 
costs so utility companies will raise rates, putting the burden 
ultimately on households and businesses. Climateflation flows 
downstream. As droughts worsen, some places just won't have the 
water to meet demand, creating hard choices likely to fall most 
heavily on farmers and low income households. Development 
options will wither in places where increased aridity leads to 
real water scarcity.
    Even communities that rely on oil and gas for tax revenue 
should be concerned about the risks of drought as water 
supports fossil fuel production and cools fossil fuel power 
plants. Water shortage can lead to stranded assets for 
companies and a declining tax base for communities. Today we'll 
hear about the crisis of water scarcity from three different 
witnesses who all face the same fundamental challenge, how do 
we make do with less?
    The hard choices and mounting costs associated with water 
scarcity are the result of decades of negligence on climate. We 
have a chance still to make a different decision and I hope we 
will. Recognize Senator Grassley.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix 
on page 32.
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    Senator Grassley. First of all, I thank you for recognizing 
the tragedy that happened in Greenfield, Iowa. Probably if you 
were watching morning television that's national, you would've 
seen it on television this very morning. So before we start 
since the Senate is in session and I can't be in Iowa, I want 
to share that my thoughts are with the people of Iowa during 
these troubled times, especially those in Adair County.
    My staff is on the ground right now in Greenfield touring 
unimaginable destruction from storms yesterday. I want to 
commend the first responders and emergency managers for their 
caring and humane work. I stand ready to help as our 
communities recover.
    Sadly, several fatalities have been reported. So Barbara 
and I are praying for the families who have lost loved ones and 
for those who have lost their homes and businesses so 
unexpectedly. As to the subject of today's hearing as with the 
previous 17 hearings, I've invited qualified scientists to 
provide a reasoned view on the very real challenges that we 
face as a result of changing climate.
    I welcome Dr. Pielke to the committee, formerly a scientist 
at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He'll tell us 
how the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 
uncertain as to the impact of climate change on droughts. In 
fact, the IPCC has not detected strong trends in any of the 
three types of droughts, meteorological, agricultural, or 
hydrological, in any region of the entire world.
    I also look forward to hearing from Dr. Castellano from 
Iowa State Department of Agronomy. The doctor's extensive work 
on soil composition shows us that there's no reason why farmers 
can't adapt to climate change, preserve our environmental 
health, and turn a profit at the same time. Rather than 
speculate on climate change doomsday, we Iowans prefer to 
confront problems head on.
    Drought is a problem that we know better than most 
Americans. I keep track of rain levels each week when I go home 
to the Grassley farm. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to submit 
an article titled, quote, ``The Importance of Distinguishing 
Climate Science from Climate Activism,'' end quote, by Dr. 
Buntgen of the University of Cambridge and put that in the 
record.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Document submitted by Senator Grassley appears in the appendix 
on page 81.
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    Chairman Whitehouse. Without objection.
    Senator Grassley. He's worried about activists who pretend 
to be scientists. And we should all make sure that we're 
following sound science. He hit the nail on the head when he 
wrote, quote, ``Activists often adopt scientific arguments as a 
source of a moral legitimation for their movements which can be 
radical and destructive rather than rational and 
constructive,'' end quote.
    We've seen our fair share of activists testify before the 
Budget Committee on matters well outside of what this committee 
was set up to do. I welcome all of our witnesses today.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. We have five 
witnesses today including witnesses from New Mexico and 
California and Oregon who will be introduced by their senators. 
Now the first is Ms. Trujillo. Welcome, Tanya Trujillo. And 
Senator Lujan, you have the floor to introduce your witness.
    Senator Lujan. Well, good morning, Chairman and Ranking 
Member. And thank you for holding this important hearing on the 
risks that worsening droughts have on our economy and our 
budget. Today, I'm honored to have the opportunity to introduce 
my good friend and fellow New Mexican Tanya Trujillo.
    I always feel grateful when New Mexicans appear before our 
committee sharing their expertise with our committee colleagues 
to answer questions to tough questions and especially providing 
a perspective with more extreme drought conditions. New 
Mexicans know drought like few others. We've lived in it for 
centuries, mastering innovative techniques to conserve precious 
water resource and protect diverse wetland ecosystems. Water is 
New Mexico's way of life.
    The foundation for the food we eat, the businesses we 
create, and the cultural traditions we pass on. Ms. Trujillo's 
testimony will illustrate the challenges facing water managers 
in the southwest in dealing with extreme drought. But it's not 
just New Mexico seeing these impacts on our economy.
    As Tanya will make clear, the future of our nation's water 
supply can no longer depend on lessons from the past. States 
are losing the tools they have relied on for a long time to 
anticipate future supply and manage competing needs. In the 
end, it will be all water users, consumers, businesses, farmers 
and ranchers, and more that will bear the brunt of these 
decisions in higher costs and reduced supply.
    Ms. Trujillo also brings this committee her decades of 
experience on water litigation, professional development, 
support, along with her tireless public service to our country. 
As Assistant Secretary to the Department of Interior for Water 
and Science, Ms. Trujillo oversaw key agencies responsible for 
the sustainable management and development of our freshwater 
resources. She now serves as water policy advisor for the 
Office of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham where I'm 
glad her talents will be used to help New Mexicans secure their 
water future.
    Thank you again, Chairman Whitehouse, and Ranking Member 
Grassley for this opportunity to introduce our witness. I look 
forward to hearing from Ms. Trujillo and the rest of our 
witnesses.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks very much, Senator Lujan. Our 
next witness is Mr. Adel Hagekhalil who will be introduced by 
Senator Padilla of California. You have the floor to make your 
introduction, Senator Padilla.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's certainly my 
pleasure to introduce my friend and our witness today, Mr. Adel 
Hagekhalil, a fellow engineer, a fellow Angeleno, a fellow son 
of immigrants. Mr. Hagekhalil is the general manager and chief 
executive officer for the Metropolitan Water District of 
Southern California, the largest wholesale drinking water 
supplier in the country that provides water to 26-member public 
agencies which collectively serve roughly five percent not just 
of the Los Angeles population, not of the California 
population, five percent of our nation's population.
    Roughly 19 million people rely on the Metropolitan Water 
District. And just to put that into context for my colleagues, 
that's more people served by his agency alone than the entire 
population of every other state represented on this dais. Under 
Mr. Hagekhalil's leadership, Metropolitan is entering a new era 
of sustainability and resiliency in the face of climate change 
and other threats to Southern California's water reliability.
    Before joining Metropolitan, he was the executive director 
and general manager of the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of 
Street Services where he worked to integrate climate adaptation 
into the largest municipal street system in the nation. I first 
came to know Adel when he was assistant general manager of the 
Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation. There are few water managers 
anywhere in the country and I'd argue in the world who have 
more experience with and better understand the impacts of more 
extreme droughts on water utilities and their budgets and what 
drought impacted utilities are doing to adapt their water 
supplies and infrastructure to meet our drinking water and 
sanitation needs.
    And as Mr. Hagekhalil and I have spent a lot of time 
collaborating on them, he has been laser focused on what all 
this means for household water rates and especially for low 
income communities' water rates. So I want thank Mr. Hagekhalil 
for flying here from Los Angeles to participate today. And Mr. 
Chairman, thank you for holding this critical meeting.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Padilla. 
Our next witness is Mr. Kevin Richards from Oregon who will be 
introduced by fellow Oregonian, Senator Merkley. Senator, you 
have the floor to make your introduction.
    Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I'm 
delighted that Kevin Richards is here accompanied by his two 
sons to share his on the ground experience of farming in our 
home state. Our farmers in Oregon are facing immense 
challenges.
    The West is in the midst of a historic drought. Demands of 
our water have never been higher while water levels have never 
been lower. And climate chaos is making our summers hotter, 
drier, and longer.
    In Oregon as temperatures have climbed, the average 
snowpack in the Cascade Mountains has dropped an average of 
more than 20 feet over the last 90 years. That means less water 
for our streams, less water for our farmers, and less water for 
our ranchers. And the supply of snow melt runs out earlier in 
the spring or summer than in the past.
    Farmers across Oregon have been grappling with these 
challenges. One of those farmers is our Kevin Richards from Fox 
Hollow Ranch in Madras, Oregon. He's a second-generation 
farmer.
    His family specializes in growing seed crops like carrots 
and Kentucky bluegrass. He also grows peppermint oil, wheat, 
alfalfa, hay. Before Mr. Richards dug into the soil of 
Jefferson County, he fought for our farmers here in Washington, 
DC as director of regulatory relations for the American Farm 
Bureau Federation.
    And he's felt the effects of this prolonged drought in 
central Oregon firsthand. Last summer, he was among hundreds of 
farmers who received only half as much water as usual which 
means, of course, fewer crops and less income. To address the 
shortage of water, Mr. Richards has invested in irrigation 
modernization programs like drip irrigation and wireless 
irrigation monitoring to improve the efficiency of this farm.
    To ensure the crops we need and more farmland doesn't fall 
fallow, it's vital that we support our family farmers like Mr. 
Richards. It's also important that irrigation districts 
increase the efficiency in their delivery of water. That's why 
I worked across the aisle with former Senator Thad Cochran of 
Mississippi to revive the Department of Agriculture's watershed 
and flood prevention operations program known back home as 
PL566 to invest in irrigation modernization projects, 
specifically the piping of irrigation districts to decrease the 
loss both to the ground and to evaporation.
    We need many more of these investments across Oregon and 
across the West so that in the future Mr. Richards can pass on 
his Fox Hollow family farm to his sons like his father passed 
it on to him. It's a pleasure to welcome him here today. Good 
to have you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Merkley. After Mr. 
Richards, we'll hear from Dr. Michael Castellano who is an 
associate professor in William T. Frankenberger Professor of 
Soil Science in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State 
University. Let me extend my condolences to you as well as an 
Iowan.
    He participates in the university's environmental science, 
sustainable agriculture and ecology, and evolutionary biology 
interdepartmental graduate degree program. His research focuses 
on the nitrogen cycle and ways it can be made more efficient 
and sustainable. Last, we have Dr. Roger Pielke who has been on 
the faculty on the University of Colorado, Boulder since 2001 
where he teaches and writes on a diverse range of policy and 
governance issues related to science, technology, environment, 
innovation, and sports.
    He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American 
Enterprise Institute where he focuses on science and technology 
policy, the politicization of science, government science 
advice, and energy and climate. Ms. Trujillo, we'll begin with 
you. You have five minutes to make your opening statement and 
your complete statements, like that of all the other witnesses, 
will be made a matter of record. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TANYA TRUJILLO, WATER POLICY ADVISOR 
   TO THE GOVERNOR, AND DEPUTY STATE ENGINEER, NEW MEXICO \4\
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    \4\ Prepared statement of Hon. Trujillo appears in the appendix on 
page 34.
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    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the 
opportunity to testify on this important subject. Thank you, 
Senator Lujan, for the introduction. And thank you, Senator 
Grassley, for looking out for the Iowans. My mom lives in Des 
Moines, and I'm happy to say hello to her today.
    As a western water manager from an arid state, I am keenly 
aware of the need to be prepared for future drought conditions. 
On today's drought monitor map, unfortunately, New Mexico takes 
the prize in a bad way. But many areas have seen improvement 
this year.
    Two years ago, the drought monitor map painted a very 
different picture with well over half the nation experiencing 
some of the worst drought conditions in recent history and 
major reservoirs hit record low levels. Communities imposed 
drought restrictions on water use and emergency actions were 
taken within the Colorado River Basin and California to protect 
infrastructure. In New Mexico, over 40 miles of the Rio Grande 
went dry, which had not been the case in over 40 years.
    Last October on a return trip to Iowa City, I participated 
in a discussion regarding the severity of the ongoing drought 
there in Iowa. We know that drought conditions pose challenges 
for every sector of our economy. Farmers make planting 
decisions based on the availability of surface water and 
groundwater.
    Cities and towns have a responsibility to ensure that 
residents have water regardless of the hydrology we are seeing. 
And we're aware of the cascading effects of drought through 
issues like wildfires where smoke crosses state lines and 
subsequent rainstorms can produce debris flows that can shut 
down highways or clog up water treatment facilities. 
Fortunately, we are working on these issues.
    And in many cases, we've been able to develop strategies to 
manage and adapt to the drought. We are also working in 
parallel on strategies to be able to store and capture water 
during wetter times if those are the conditions that we see and 
if we have the infrastructure available to do that. In New 
Mexico like other western states, we have made significant 
investments in infrastructure and water management programs.
    But we know we need to do more. In January, our governor, 
Michelle Lujan Grisham, released a 50-year water action plan. 
That plan identifies 11 drought response areas that we need to 
work on in order to enable New Mexicans to respond to the drier 
conditions that may be on the horizon.
    The 50-year water action plan is based on input received 
from technical experts and water users around the state. And it 
emphasizes the need to do more in water conservation among all 
sectors. It also recognizes the need to protect water quality 
and restore important watersheds and to look to the future to 
develop new water supplies.
    All of the efforts in the plan will require sustained 
levels of funding and additional investments in infrastructure. 
We are grateful for the recent announcements of federal funding 
for water projects within New Mexico from the Inflation 
Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The new 
federal funding will be paired with state and local 
appropriations and will help our communities develop more 
efficient water delivery systems and create backup supplies for 
use during droughts.
    The existing funding is a good down payment for the 
additional funding that will be necessary to fully implement 
the required actions. Having strong partnerships is a key to 
all of these efforts. In New Mexico, we know we have to work 
closely with our water users to manage the limited supplies we 
have available.
    We also know we have to work closely with our sister states 
and continue to work with them on developing collaborative 
agreements for water sharing. We work, of course, very closely 
with the federal agencies who own and operate many of the large 
infrastructure projects. And it will be required to have as 
much flexibility as possible in those management decision 
making processes to make sure we can get through the tough 
drought years that may be ahead.
    There's no doubt that the available funding works best when 
it can be utilized in conjunction with collaborative efforts 
among multiple water management agencies. Mr. Chairman, thank 
you for the opportunity to participate in this hearing and 
describe some of the ways that New Mexico and its partners are 
responding to drought. The strategies and action under 
development will ensure that New Mexico's communities can 
continue to prosper even during drought or during whatever 
future conditions we may see on the horizon. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Ms. Trujillo. 
It's wonderful to have you with us. Let me turn now to Mr. 
Hagekhalil.

    STATEMENT OF ADEL HAGEKHALIL, GENERAL MANAGER AND CHIEF 
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN 
                         CALIFORNIA \5\
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    \5\ Prepared statement of Mr. Hagekhalil appears in the appendix on 
page 42.
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    Mr. Hagekhalil. Thank you, Chair Whitehouse. Thank you, 
Member Grassley. Appreciate the opportunity to testify before 
the committee and also extend my condolences to the families in 
Iowa, Senator Grassley.
    Also want to thank Senator Padilla for the introduction and 
the partnership in uplifting communities everywhere, not only 
in California but across this country. Thank you. Metropolitan 
is the largest wholesale drinking water provider in the United 
States.
    We are committed to providing safe, reliable water for all 
with no one left behind. I repeat, with no one left behind. 
That's a commitment that we all have, that everyone should have 
the right for water.
    We represent 26 member agencies including 14 cities, 12 
water districts, serving water to over 19 million people, and 
supplying water to support an economy of 1.6 trillion dollars. 
Water is life. Water is economy.
    Metropolitan is renowned for our complex and integrated 
water systems and our commitment to water use efficiency. This 
combination of water reliability and water use efficiency have 
long worked together to sustain the wellbeing of our 
communities. Our water use today is the same as it was 50 years 
ago with double the population through over billions of dollars 
in investments and conservation.
    Half the water we use is locally sourced. This year, 
California and Metropolitan has conserved and added a record 
amount of water in Lake Mead. Metropolitan alone has added 1.7 
million acre-feet of water in storage in Lake Mead, equivalent 
to 25 feet in elevation.
    Overall, we have 3.4 million acre-feet across in total 
storage in our system. That's equivalent to three years of 
imported water for our users in Southern California. Colorado 
River deliveries to the state in 2023 were the lowest since 
1949.
    However, the challenges we face today are enormous. Water 
year '20 to '22 was the driest consecutive three-year period in 
California. Notably, this extreme drought was immediately 
preceded by and followed by very wet years in 2019 and '23. 
Over the last five years, we have swung from record levels of 
water in storage to record breaking drought conditions and back 
again.
    California has always had the most volatile year to year 
precipitation in the nation. But this rapid swing, as we call 
the climate whiplash, is unprecedented. We need new, adaptive, 
resilient water management practices and tools.
    The drought challenges our ability to reliably provide 
water to our service area. Metropolitan imports half of its 
water from Northern California via the State Water Project and 
from the Colorado River. During the last drought, our water 
deliveries were only enough for six areas in our region.
    We had to provide human health and safety needs. 
Unfortunately, the low water allocation highlighted the 
vulnerability in our system in delivering water. Six of our 26 
member agencies that we serve, nearly 7 million people, were 
severely impacted by water shortage.
    As a result, Metropolitan, our member agencies in 
partnership with our ag partners implemented extraordinary 
conservation measures, building our past actions and 
partnerships. We launched an aggressive campaign that promoted 
water-saving behaviors and invested 46 million dollars in 
conservation rebates, landscape, and irrigation efficiency 
measures. We reoperate our distribution system to utilize as 
much stored water as possible and accelerated work on projects 
totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to re-engineer our 
existing water delivery system and improve our flexibility.
    We also accelerated investment in 200 million construction 
projects for groundwater storage in Antelope Valley to allow us 
to store more water from the State Water Project south of the 
delta and north of our service area. Additional storage and 
conveyance projects are also in the works. I want to 
acknowledge the partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation and 
the commissioner, Commissioner Touton.
    And thank you for the federal investments are helping us 
move the needle on these investments. Even as California's 
precipitation becomes more erratic, drought conditions are 
putting pressure on the west overall and what we're looking at. 
New infrastructure to recycle, capture, move, and store water 
is needed to ensure the communities that we serve have reliable 
water supply.
    This includes projects like Pure Water Southern California, 
the largest recycle water project in the country. We are 
recycling 150 million gallons a day, serving 1.5 million 
people. Metropolitan is developing climate adaptation master 
plan for water to provide roadmap to guide us into the future. 
Weather extremes has also had financial implications.
    Drought compels us to double down on conservation and 
efficiency investments and more resilient and climate adaptive 
infrastructure. Metropolitan is currently evaluating new 
infrastructure projects to improve our climate resiliency, 
including the largest recycle project in the nation. Our 
capital investments, we're looking at about 30 billion dollars 
in 2023 dollars.
    This is beyond what we can ask our rate payers. But it's 
necessary to ensure they have safe and reliable drinking water 
for generations to come with no one left behind. Sustained 
federal assistance in the form of grants, new bond financing 
mechanism, and assistance to low income households are 
essential as we work to build more resilient water systems and 
adapt to our changing climate. But it all requires us to 
partner and work together across our watersheds. Thank you very 
much.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, sir. And we turn 
now to Mr. Kevin Richards.

STATEMENT OF KEVIN RICHARDS, FARMER AND MANAGING PARTNER, RB AG 
                              \6\
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    \6\ Prepared statement of Mr. Richards appears in the appendix on 
page 49.
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    Mr. Richards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity 
to share the challenges farmers face as we struggle to adapt to 
a changing climate characterized by drought and water scarcity 
in the western states. I farm about 1,000 acres with my family 
in the central Oregon high desert. We raise some livestock, 
hay, and grain.
    However, our farm and our region specializes in grass seed 
and vegetable seed production. In fact, the county where I farm 
produces the majority of the global carrot seed supply. Our 
region historically receives less than ten inches of rain per 
year, so we rely on irrigation water.
    After in-stream water rights were exhausted in the 20th 
century, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation built reservoirs to 
capture winter snow runoff and divert stored water nearly 100 
miles to 60,000 acres in North Unit Irrigation District where I 
farm. Unfortunately, perennial drought has reduced allotments 
to as low as 20 percent of normal in recent years and it would 
require multiple wet years to restore reservoir and water 
supply levels to their historic averages. How is drought 
impacting our farms and communities?
    Frankly, some farms simply cannot adapt fast enough. This 
spring, there have already been three auctions in our small 
community to liquidate farm equipment of multigenerational 
family farms who have made the difficult decision to quit. Less 
water means fewer crops and fewer jobs for farm workers and 
agriculture businesses.
    That is taking a toll on our local economy and employment. 
Our rural town has three major equipment supply dealers. One of 
those businesses decided to close their doors and relocate this 
winter.
    Our local school district is one of the most authentically 
diverse in the nation with one-third of our students Native 
American from the Confederated Tribe of Warm Springs and over 
one-third of our students from Hispanic American families who 
immigrated as farmworkers. Irrigated agriculture is the 
economic engine that creates jobs and prosperity for these 
families. And everyone suffers when that engine starts to run 
out of fuel.
    A less obvious cost of drought is the impact on the local 
environment. When arable, irrigated farmland is dried up, it 
creates micro ecological disasters in the form of erosion, 
proliferation of noxious and invasive weeds, and soil 
degradation. Sustaining soil health helps maintain the beauty 
of our landscapes and it is essential to farm productivity.
    But it is nearly impossible without adequate irrigation 
water or sufficient farm revenue to justify costly inputs. How 
are farms adapting to drought and water scarcity? All farms are 
desperately searching for ways to tighten their belts and find 
efficiencies.
    Unfortunately, short-term solutions often come with 
negative consequences. It's painful telling your loyal employee 
they no longer have a job. And sometimes cutting expenses leads 
to cutting corners and neglecting investments in maintaining 
soil health or deferring investments.
    Nevertheless, farmers like me who want to see American 
agriculture in our rural communities thrive are finding ways to 
adapt and invest in drought resiliency. We're adjusting our 
crop rotation and looking for opportunities to grow new, high 
value annual crops that allow for greater flexibility in our 
water use. We're pouring or resources into on-farm conservation 
by monitoring soil moisture, piping ditches, upgrading 
sprinklers to the latest technology, and converting to drip 
irrigation.
    What collective solutions are available to enhance drought 
resiliency? A robust farm safety net and risk management tools 
like those authorized through the Farm Bill are enormously 
helpful toward ensuring family farms can survive the risk and 
volatility in modern agriculture. Please continue to support 
those programs as well as ways to adapt those programs to be 
more viable to the specialty crops that we grow in western 
states.
    However, some of the greatest opportunities to save water 
are not on the farm but within our irrigation infrastructure. I 
urge your support for programs and funding that help to 
modernize irrigated agriculture in the west. As Senator Merkley 
highlighted, the Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations 
Program, also known as PL-566, has been especially beneficial 
and used in novel ways to fund canal piping in central Oregon 
and make sure water diverted from rivers makes it to farmers' 
fields.
    Senator Merkley has been a champion of this effort in 
central Oregon, and I'm grateful that he's leading a bipartisan 
effort to enhance the funding for PL-566 while taking a multi-
benefit approach that targets not just water savings but 
ecosystem improvements and cultural priorities. Projects funded 
through PL-566 and other investments in modernizing our 
infrastructure have a tremendous return on investment and 
deserve your support.
    Finally, we're in search of larger, more permanent 
solutions that will protect our rivers while preserving 
irrigated agriculture in the communities that depend on farming 
in central Oregon. I've included in my written testimony more 
specifics on projects that we're pursuing that will help our 
irrigation district continue to thrive throughout the 21st 
century. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks very much, Mr. Richards. We now 
turn to Dr. Castellano.

 STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL CASTELLANO, WILLIAM T. FRANKENBERGER 
    PROFESSORSHIP IN SOIL SCIENCE, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \7\ Prepared statement of Dr. Castellano appears in the appendix on 
page 52.
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    Dr. Castellano. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member 
Grassley, and committee members, thank you for the opportunity 
to speak here today. As an alumnus of the University of Rhode 
Island and a professor at Iowa State University, I feel very 
comfortable before this committee. I can safely say that I've 
worked with the best fishermen and farmers in the world.
    I'm an ecosystems scientist with particular expertise in 
the understanding and management of carbon, nitrogen, and water 
dynamics in agronomic systems. I work with a range of 
scientists, engineers, and most importantly farmers to 
understand, design, and implement systems that minimize 
tradeoffs between productivity and environmental performance. 
I'm currently the U.S. representative to the United Nations 
intergovernmental panel on soils where I'm the lead author on 
the North American assessment of the forthcoming 2025 Status of 
the World's Soil report.
    Climate change is a serious risk. Weather variability, 
particularly precipitation extremes, creates significant 
challenges for farmers. We should take steps to mitigate and 
adapt to climate change when and where it makes sense without 
slowing of the progress we've made towards improving the human 
condition, much of which is attributable to agriculture.
    In the last 50 years alone, we've doubled corn production 
per acre. The annual rate of yield gain shows no signs of 
declining. And the increase in production has been accompanied 
by significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
    Nevertheless, emissions from crop production are 
significant and among the most difficult to abate because 
unlike other sectors, they're not from fossil fuel combustion. 
Instead, they're from nitrous oxide, a biproduct of processes 
that are critical for plant growth. Improved management of 
nitrogen and water are required to minimize agricultural 
emissions.
    Although agricultural emissions are hard to abate, there 
are strategies that increase yield while reducing emissions. 
Agronomic practices that explicitly aim to increase the amount 
and resilience of crop yield in an environmentally responsible 
manner are often overlooked by conservation programs, yet they 
can be extremely effective at adapting to climate change and 
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, I'd like to highlight 
two of these practices, subsurface drainage and crop residue 
management.
    More than 50 million acres of cropland across all 50 states 
benefit from subsurface drainage. This infrastructure includes 
connected networks of private and community-owned drainage 
pipes that can be valued at more than 50 billion dollars. 
Subsurface drainage improves plant and soil health and allows 
farmers to make timely field operations that enables successful 
execution of additional conservation practices such as cover 
crops and reduced tillage and precision fertilizer management.
    Together, these factors reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 
increasing yield while reducing nitrogen fertilizer needs and 
nitrous oxide emissions. Although drains can promote nutrient 
runoff, they also enable edge-of-field treatment opportunities 
such as wetlands which are among the most effective nutrient 
loss reduction practices and add diversity to the landscape. 
Unfortunately, much of our drainage infrastructure was 
installed more than 100 years ago and it is deteriorating.
    In addition, capacity of our drainage infrastructure is no 
long sufficient owing in part to an increase in heavy 
participation in central and eastern U.S. The increase in heavy 
precipitation also reinforces another growing opportunity, the 
need for crop residue management. As I mentioned earlier, corn 
yield and the yield of many other crops is increasing every 
year, a great testament to farmer innovation and the success of 
U.S. investments in agricultural research.
    As yields increase, so do crop residues, the portions of 
the crop that are not typically harvested. Crop residue 
production of corn systems is increasing by about 100 pounds 
per acre every year. In the 1970s and '80s, crop residue 
retention was required to reduce erosion and build soil organic 
matter.
    However, the increase in residue production now creates 
significant challenges for farmers. The extra residue keeps the 
soil cold and wet, slowing the growth of subsequent crops and 
challenging the implementation of conservation practices such 
as reduced tillage and cover crops. The United States 
Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service 
and land grant universities have demonstrated the partial 
residue harvest in corn systems can increase yield, reduce 
nitrogen fertilizer needs, and reducing nitrous oxide emissions 
without risking loss of soil health.
    Hence, partial crop residue harvest can make significant 
reduction in the carbon intensity scores of U.S. agriculture. 
Moreover, the harvested residue can be transformed into 
renewable fuels that make significant contributions towards 
decarbonizing other hard to abate sectors of our economy. 
Better communication about the environmental benefits of 
drainage and crop residue management would ensure that farmers 
understand and act on them.
    Education, technical assistance, and incentive programs 
could accelerate the implementation and maximize the benefits 
of updating our drainage infrastructure and harvesting crop 
residues for the decarbonization of agriculture and other 
sectors. It's clear that opportunities to reduce agricultural 
emissions can also contribute to productivity of our cropping 
systems and decarbonization of agriculture in other sectors. 
Going forward, we cannot, need not sacrifice productivity for 
climate change mitigation. Thanks for your time.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks very much, Dr. Castellano.
    Our final witness is Dr. Pielke.

STATEMENT OF DR. ROGER PIELKE, JR., PROFESSOR, COLLEGE OF ARTS 
        AND SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \8\ Prepared statement of Dr. Pielke appears in the appendix on 
page 60.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Dr. Pielke. Chairman Whitehouse, Senator Grassley, thank 
you for the opportunity to testify today. For almost 30 years 
along with many colleagues, I've studied extreme weather and 
climate and associated impacts. Our work has been cited in the 
most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change or IPCC.
    The IPCC is comprised of hardworking and intelligent people 
who reflect a spirit of public service. They're also humans, 
and the IPCC is, of course, fallible. Conclusions of the IPCC 
reports are snapshots in time reflecting the evolution of 
scientific understanding.
    Individual experts may have legitimate views that are at 
odds with the IPCC. And that is, of course, expected in a 
diverse scientific landscape. I'm happy to report that the IPCC 
Working Group 1 assessments on the literature of extreme events 
in my areas of expertise have with few exceptions done an 
overall excellent job accurately reflecting the scientific 
literature.
    Today, I summarize with the most recent IPCC report 
concluded about the detection and attribution of trends in 
drought at the global scale and also for the United States. I 
start with some key IPCC terminology. First, detection, quote, 
``the process of demonstrating the climate or a system affected 
by climate has changed in some defined statistical sense 
without providing a reason for that change. An identified 
change is detected in observation if it's likelihood of 
occurrence by chance due to internal variability is determined 
to be small.''
    Attribution, quote, ``the process of evaluating the 
relative contributions of multiple causal factors to a change 
or event with an assessment of confidence.'' Third, drought, 
quote, ``periods of time with substantially below-average 
moisture conditions, usually covering large areas, during which 
limitations in water availability result in negative impacts 
for various components of nature systems and economic 
sectors.'' It is more challenging to achieve detection and 
attribution of trends in drought than, say, hurricanes or 
tornados because drought can be defined and measured in many 
different ways in the context of significant and natural 
climate variability.
    Detecting and attributing trends in drought impacts is even 
more challenging. It is very easy to identify drought trends 
over various time periods in various places that are the result 
of internal variability rather than an indication of a change 
in climate. Often detection and attribution are confused and so 
too is climate variability with climate change.
    The IPCC finds with high confidence, that's an eight in ten 
chance, that human-caused climate change influences the global 
hydrological cycle and thus drought. My written testimony makes 
four main points summarizing IPCC findings. Number one, the 
IPCC focuses on three types of drought, meteorological, 
hydrological, and what it calls agricultural or ecological 
drought.
    At the global scale, the IPCC has not detected and 
attributed trends in any of the three types of drought for any 
region with high confidence. That's an eight in ten chance. For 
the United States which is summarized in the figure here which 
is in my written testimony, the IPCC has only low confidence, 
that is a two in ten chance, in detected or attributed trends 
in all three types of drought for all regions with the 
exception of Western North America where it has medium 
confidence, that's five in ten chance, and the detection and 
attributions of trends in agricultural and ecological drought.
    Looking forward to 2100, which is summarized in this 
figure, also in my written testimony. At the global scale, the 
IPCC does not expect that a signal with trends in drought will 
emerge in any region with high confidence. Again, that's an 
eight in ten chance.
    For the United States, the IPCC has only low confidence. 
Again, that's a two in ten chance that a signal of trends in 
drought will emerge from the background of natural variability 
in all three types of drought for all regions except Western 
and Central North America for agricultural and ecological 
drought and also hydrological drought in Western North America. 
Both of those are at medium confidence, five in ten chance.
    So I know that's a lot of words. But my written testimony 
includes several summary tables and figures from the IPCC 
reports that concisely summarize these IPCC findings and 
associated confidence levels. This is an image that comes from 
Chapter 11 of the IPCC.
    It's, I think, one of the last pages of the report. I 
encourage you to take a close look at it. In plain English, the 
IPCC concludes that changes to the climate system resulting 
from human activity, notably the emission of carbon dioxide 
from the burning of fossil fuels changes the hydrological cycle 
and thus affects drought.
    At the same time, the IPCC does not have high confidence 
that research has detected the signal of a change in past 
drought at the global scale or in the United States, nor does 
the IPCC expect with high confidence such a signal to emerge 
beyond internal variability, even under its most extreme 
scenario to 2100. Such uncertainties and areas of ignorance can 
inform both mitigation and adaptation policies and planning. 
Fourth and my final point, to be absolutely clear, I emphasize 
explicitly and unequivocally that human caused climate change 
poses significant risks to society and the environment and that 
various policy responses in the form of mitigation and 
adaptation are necessary and make good sense. Thank you, and I 
welcome your questions.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Hearing you, Mr. 
Richards, reminds me a lot of conversations that I have with 
our fishermen in Rhode Island. I remember going out on a 
trawler one day just to see things firsthand and spend some 
time with the fishing captain who operates the trawler.
    And he turned to me and he said, Sheldon, what you gotta 
Understand, this is not my grandfather's ocean. He'd grown up 
beginning to fish with his grandfather. Sounds to me like this 
is not your grandfather's land out in Oregon either.
    Mr. Richards. I think that's right, Senator. As farmers, I 
think we do relate to fishermen, and we consider ourselves 
stewards of resources. But one of those resources that we're 
stewards of is not just the water and the soil and the wildlife 
but also the cultural heritage that is kind of the foundation 
of American agriculture. And our resource industry is, like, 
timber and our fisheries. And so we're working hard not just to 
save water and preserve the agriculture industry but also to 
preserve the heritage of American farming.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Well, we hear very regularly from 
Senator Merkley about the foresters, farmers, and fishermen of 
Oregon. Ms. Trujillo, you mentioned Governor Lujan Grisham's 
50-year water action plan. Could you give us a little 
description of that plan and its foundation in science?
    Ms. Trujillo. Yes, thank you, Senator. It is a report that 
the governor asked us to work on to really demonstrate the 
situation in New Mexico and the challenges that we may see if 
we do see a continued dry future. And what we use to inform the 
plan was a variety of information that came in from technical 
experts, including a report from 2022 that analyzed the impacts 
of climate change on our water resources.
    It was developed from a panel of primarily New Mexico 
scientists and researchers who had worked in the area for many 
decades. And they looked at a variety of situations, from soil, 
moisture impacts to groundwater recharge impacts, of course, 
surface water implications, trying to predict what we might see 
in the future, all tied together with an understanding that 
there is uncertainty and we don't know exactly what the future 
conditions are going to be. But if we see a drier future and if 
we see the prediction that we may see, up to 25 percent less 
water coming into our systems, we have to develop actions to 
respond to that.
    And so that's what this plan does. We have actions for 
water conservation in particular that are going to help us meet 
that supply and demand equation. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. And Mr. Hagekhalil, you 
mentioned that business models for utilities are having to 
change in the face of climate change. Could you describe 
specifically how that's impacting the utility that you run, the 
concerns are you see as you look forward?
    Mr. Hagekhalil. Sure. I think to me it's the previous way 
of charging for water was about the consumption of water use. 
And most--it was what we call telescopic water charging. So the 
more water you use, the more you pay.
    But what we're seeing right now is that we're actually 
incentivizing people. We're paying people to use less water. 
And we're investing a lot of money to--whether it's through 
changing the landscape or conservation informing, or changing 
how you do that.
    And that's why our water use is 50 percent. Half of the 
water, we use 50 years ago. But for us to continue investing in 
this water resiliency, and what we need to do is build more 
storage, more conveyance so we can capture what water when we 
have it.
    And during dry conditions, we don't have to rely on and 
fight over the water we don't have. And to do that, we have to 
find new ways to charge for water without having to rely on the 
less amount of water we're studying. So our business model has 
to change.
    We need to find ways to generate revenue that is not based 
on the volumetric use of water. It has to be kind of a fixed 
rate that's built on the overall base and sharing in the cost. 
And also ensuring affordability for our community.
    So we need to find ways where we award people for 
conservation, address the affordability question. I appreciate 
Senator Padilla's leadership on the low income assistance 
program. But I think what we need to do is how we can raise the 
money locally because we appreciate the federal government's 
funding.
    But most of the money is going to come from the local 
investments and local rates. And how can we do it in a way that 
does not force us to--force people to use more water? So we're 
changing it now.
    And last month, our board of directors approved for the 
first time an increase in property tax to capture what we call 
the resiliency investments to help us invest across the board 
in projects that can move us forward and reduce our dependence 
on the sale of water because that's the new model that we have 
to do. And we are working through it. And we look forward to 
developing a new business model for Metropolitan in our region.
    But it also takes partnerships. And I appreciate the 
partnership with our partners on the Colorado River. Arizona-
Nevada, for example, are partners with Metropolitan in Southern 
California in building the recycled water project.
    Because if we invest together, we are helping each other 
reduce our dependence in imported water. So expanding the pie, 
making the tent bigger, and working together across the 
watershed and across the southwest and across California. Going 
to help all of us continue to move forward and be resilient.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. My time is up. 
Senator Grassley.
    Senator Grassley. Dr. Castellano, how can farmers in Iowa, 
maybe states similar to Iowa, improve their soil quality and 
limit emissions without demanding further input from the 
federal government?
    Dr. Castellano. Yeah, thank you for the question, Senator 
Grassley. I think the way that farmers go forward and limit 
their emissions and adapt and mitigate to climate change, 
improve soil without further dependence on the federal 
government is taking a systems approach to things like cover 
crops and no till. And when I say a systems approach, these 
practices, these conservation practices which are named in the 
40(b), for example.
    They can't be prescribed indiscriminately because they just 
don't work everywhere. It's as simple as that. The science 
shows that on average, in fact, they may even reduce crop 
yields.
    Yet when they're placed and targeted in proper systems, 
they can be very effective and do many great things for the 
environment. As I mentioned, subsurface drainage and crop 
residue management are two practices that help put that systems 
approach forward to allow other practices to go into the system 
better. That's where I see things going.
    Senator Grassley. And also for you, are you more concerned 
with weather variability or drought in Iowa? And what can 
Iowans do best to prepare so that there's more rainfall 
absorbed as opposed to runoff?
    Dr. Castellano. Sure. Thanks again for the question. As we 
heard from Dr. Pielke, the clear challenge here is variability 
and precipitation. And that's not just based on the science but 
it's what we hear from the farmers as well.
    There's big precipitation events as we saw yesterday in 
Iowa that are a major concern. We heard in the testimony here 
today about the ongoing drought in Iowa. That was punctuated by 
May of this year which through yesterday is the second greatest 
precipitation, May, on record.
    Farmers are doing things too, I want to add, to adapt to 
droughts. They did achieve very high yields in three of the 
four years during the sustained drought that we had in Iowa, 
including the record yield. And one of those four years we saw 
a very low yield, and that was due to an extreme precipitation 
event, a derecho storm that you remember very well, Senator.
    Senator Grassley. Dr. Pielke, given your scientific 
expertise, I'd like to give you an opportunity if you want to 
take advantage of it to address any factually inaccurate 
science-based statements that were made today. And then I have 
a follow-up.
    Dr. Pielke. Yeah, thanks. We're in a period where there's a 
lot of what I would call anecdotal attribution. Something 
happens somewhere in the world. There's a tragic event in the 
skies over Southeast Asia yesterday, a turbulence event. And 
the news is covered with this is caused by climate change.
    And the quick attribution of everything that happens to 
climate change flattens our understanding. And these are very 
complex phenomena and processes. I learned three things in 
reading my colleagues testimony that are fascinating and I 
think a much more important part of the study.
    One is that the Southern California Water District uses 
half the water that it used to. That is an incredible story of 
human ingenuity and innovation. I have to follow up on that.
    The other is that most of the world's carrot seeds come 
from the high desert which is another incredible testament. And 
then the third thing I learned is that crop productivity, 
despite all the variability and change in climate over the past 
generation, since my grandparents were young people, has 
continued to increase. It is expected to continue to increase 
and is expected to continue to increase.
    Senator Grassley. And also, I'd like to have you as my 
final question, Dr. Pielke, to ask you why you've argued that--
let's say political liberals rather than people in just one 
political party--are distancing themselves from the views of 
the International Panel on Climate Change.
    Dr. Pielke. Yeah. I mean, I'll just give you an anecdote. I 
was first invited to testify before the Senate 22 years ago. I 
think it was environment and public works.
    And I was invited by Senate Democrats. And what they said 
to me was, would you come before the Senate and summarize what 
the recent, at that time, third assessment report that the IPCC 
said. So I did that. And then last week, I was invited by 
Senate Republicans to come with the exact same request. Could 
you come summarize what the IPCC says?
    My explanation of this is that at some point climate 
proponents, climate activists decided to make extreme weather 
events the face of climate change. And in doing so, they went 
well beyond what the science can support. And so the IPCC is no 
longer particularly useful making those arguments because as I 
said today, it pours some cold water on the anecdotal 
attribution claims.
    Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you----
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Grassley.
    Senator Grassley [continuing]. To all the panelists.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Lujan.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN

    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Trujillo, thank 
you again for being here today, especially to share New 
Mexico's perspective with the committee. All New Mexicans 
understand drought.
    But the drought we are experiencing right now is different. 
It's longer, it's hotter, and it's less predictable. Just look 
at the Rio Grande River which is not getting the attention that 
it deserves, especially with our brothers and sisters, 
including New Mexico who depend on the Colorado.
    In the legislation that this Congress passed, it also 
included the Rio Grande River. So that's my way of trying to 
get the Bureau of Reclamation's attention. Now for generations, 
New Mexicans and the Rio Grande have worked in rhythm, snowpack 
melting in the spring, would help communities weather tough, 
dry periods in the summer.
    That has a lot of the Rio Grande to sustain the region 
providing a constant pulse of water that supports over 6 
million people and agriculture and manufacturing industries 
across two countries. That's all changed. With increasing 
temperatures, snowpack is melting earlier and faster, forcing 
communities to use groundwater and deplete aquifers at critical 
levels. Ms. Trujillo, to protect water resources for 
generations to come, how does New Mexico plan to deal with 
rising temperatures, stronger drought, and less predictable 
precipitation?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator, for your leadership and 
for your work on behalf of New Mexico. In New Mexico, we are 
always thinking about how to deal with the next drought 
situation and the ability to manage as you said in a complex 
system of surface water supplies and groundwater supplies that 
are interconnected. That ability for us to manage is going to 
be what we need to get us through the dry years.
    We are going to be also investing as I said earlier in the 
actions in the governor's 50-year water action plan. That means 
we're going to have to do more conservation in municipalities, 
in agricultural communities, and on a systemwide basis. We're 
also going to have to look for new water supplies in the future 
if we continue to see the dry years on the horizon. And then 
overarching everything, we have to make sure the water quality 
is protected. So all of those actions are on our mind every day 
as we're working to try to make sure we have water for our 
communities.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. Now long-term drought is 
also fueling more intense, frequent, and unpredictable 
wildfires with costs that are felt for many years after the 
fire is extinguished. During recent common extreme drought 
conditions, small burns can rapidly evolve into megafires, 
multiplying the costs of damages in the process.
    Now that was the case in 2022 when the Forest Service lost 
control of a prescribed burn that grew into Hermits Peak/Calf 
Canyon Fire, the largest in New Mexico's history. Among the 
impacts, billions of dollars in financial damages, hundreds of 
homes lost. The fire left behind burn scars and the watershed 
that served 17,000 people in and around Las Vegas. When 
monsoons struck months later, the runoff flushed sediments and 
other wildfire debris into the city's reservoirs.
    The runoff was too contaminated for Las Vegas' only water 
treatment plant with no backup groundwater while running. It 
did not take long before supplies plummeted. Ms. Trujillo, how 
did the water crisis get so dire so fast in Las Vegas, New 
Mexico?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator. And I was born in Las 
Vegas. My family's ranch land is in the burn area. And I 
appreciate your support and help and that of all of our 
delegation in providing resources and assistance to our 
community.
    The city of Las Vegas is similar to many other western 
cities or rural cities throughout the country where they are 
reliant on a single supply of water. And in this circumstance, 
unfortunately, that supply of water is fed by the watershed 
that was in the burn area. And their system was not able to 
handle the runoff and the debris that was coming through that 
area.
    The resources that we've been able to assist them with 
include trying to develop cooperative agreements, trying to 
improve the infrastructure there in the city to make sure they 
can provide water to their citizens. And it's something that 
many communities around the country should be thinking about if 
they are in a similar circumstance to Las Vegas. So thank you 
again for your support.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Ms. Trujillo. Mr. Chairman, I 
have several other questions. I'll submit them into the record 
as well, and thank you again for this important hearing.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Very well. Thank you very much. 
Senator Van Hollen.

                STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN

    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And 
it's good to be here with you and my colleague from New Mexico. 
And I know a lot of you represent western parts of the country.
    But as you know, drought and water scarcity issues are not 
limited to the west. In my state of Maryland, climate change is 
causing more intense summer droughts and saltwater intrusion 
which contributes to a growing water scarcity problem in our 
state. And what you're seeing is a lot of our communities are 
responding to try to remain more resilient.
    The city of Westminster which is in Carroll County, 
Maryland has initiated a project called Pure Water Westminster 
to study the safety and effectiveness of advanced treatment of 
reclaimed water for indirect potable reuse to augment surface 
water storage. And then in Anne Arundel County, a major county 
in Maryland, they're exploring the feasibility of large-scale 
groundwater replenishment efforts to protect against 
groundwater depletion. These are water recycling projects that 
also have secondary benefits because when you prevent that 
water from running off into the Chesapeake Bay, it obviously 
means that the Bay doesn't face as many stresses.
    So we're looking at more and more innovated recycling--
water recycling projects in Maryland as in other parts of the 
country. I worked hard with my colleagues to secure the 
inclusion of the alternative water source grants pilot program 
as part of the Infrastructure Bill. It's authorized, but we 
have not yet funded it, provided appropriations. So Mr. 
Hagekhalil, could you just talk about the importance of these 
water recycling programs and how they're becoming more 
important because of the impact of climate change?
    Mr. Hagekhalil. Thank you, Senator, for the question. And I 
want to say is our success as a nation has to be through 
collaboration across the entire nation. And that's why it's 
important as water agencies and every utility is working 
together in collaboration under the associations exchanging 
knowledge, experience, and what we need to do because we can't 
reinvent the wheel.
    Next month, I'm actually going down to University of 
Colorado, Boulder to talk about the future and how we do it. 
But as Governor Newsom, for example, developed his water supply 
action plan. And we know that 10 percent of the water supply in 
California is going to disappear.
    And what we need to do is manage risk because water is so 
essential to our farmers. Water is so essential to our 
businesses and economy. And what we need to do is develop risk-
based approach.
    So we can't put all our eggs in one basket. So we need to 
diversify our portfolio, what I call the one water approach. 
And as you are looking at pure water in your community, we are 
looking at pure water in Southern California.
    We need to diversify our water supply. And we need to find 
other sources of water that can augment it. So what we're 
looking, recycling, building the largest recycle water project 
in Southern California, 150 million gallons a day, actually, 
the largest recycle water project in the country.
    It's going to take water. Treat the water that was going to 
go into the ocean and be wasted. Recycling it and putting it in 
the ground. And now we have direct portable.
    That means we can up it upstream or treatment plants. So 
during drought conditions, we're not fighting over that water. 
We're actually putting water away. And that can provide us a 
supply we need, not only for Southern California but the entire 
state and the entire Colorado River watershed.
    By us working together in partnership and investing and 
appreciate the funding from the infrastructure bill that we 
have received and the Bureau of Reclamation's efforts on this, 
I think we need to diversify. So recycling is critical. 
Capturing water and storing it is critical.
    Building the infrastructure to move water around and how we 
store water, whether it's underground or above ground. All of 
these have to come together, what I call it, it's a holistic 
one water approach that we do it. But recycling with the 
technology we have is safe, doable, and reliable source of 
water that when we have dry conditions, we can use that water 
to help continue the economy and continue the thriving of our 
communities across the board.
    Senator Van Hollen. I appreciate that. Thank you. Many 
people when they think of farming also think of the Midwest. We 
have a very vibrant farming community in the state of Maryland. 
And saltwater intrusion is reducing the useable groundwater for 
our farmers who often lack a backup water supply that they can 
turn to.
    We know that this will get worse as we see the continuous 
impact of climate change. One of the programs that our farmers 
are using to try to remain resilient in their operations is the 
Natural Resource Conservation Service, NRCS, to help farmers 
adapt. So Mr. Richards, I just wanted to get your thoughts on 
the importance of that as one of the tools to address these 
water issues.
    Mr. Richards. Absolutely, Senator. Thank you for the 
question. The programs that are available, accessible for 
farmers through NRCS are tremendously helpful in incentivizing 
cover cropping and water and soil conservation efforts on 
farms, some of which were highlighted in other testimony today. 
They are very useful and beneficial. One challenge is they're 
not always available on an emergency basis when drought is 
threatening the soil health and kind of microecological 
disasters on neglected farmland.
    And so I believe there's an opportunity to enhance some of 
those programs and potentially make them available on a more 
emergency basis. And actually, our county piloted a program in 
2022 to cost share, incentivize cover cropping and weed 
management on ground that was dried up due to drought to help 
advert some of the environmental disasters that were at risk. 
And so we're exploring ways to access grant funding through 
NRCS to build that program and make it more robust on a 
continuous basis.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thanks for mentioning that. I look 
forward to working with my colleagues here as part of the Farm 
Bill reauthorization to see if we can fine tune some of those 
programs to address these issues. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. I'm told we have two senators on the 
way here, although one of the things that you learn quickly 
around the Senate is that you can never believe senators about 
where they are relative to where they're supposed to be. 
There's a legendary story of the cloak room calling Ted Kennedy 
and saying, we need you on this vote. Are you on your way?
    Yes, he said. I'm at the airport, leaving out that he was 
at the Boston airport. So I will take just a moment if you 
don't mind, Mr. Castellano, to ask you to elaborate a little 
bit on your statement. The potential to sustainably harvest a 
portion of crop residue is growing every year, representing a 
new source of feed, fiber, and fuel that can help to 
decarbonize other sectors of our economy.
    Could you elaborate on that sentence while we wait and see? 
Oh, here we go. Look at that.
    Dr. Castellano. May I still elaborate, Senator Whitehouse?
    Chairman Whitehouse. You may elaborate.
    Dr. Castellano. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Romney is going to take a 
minute to get himself sorted out.
    Dr. Castellano. So as I mentioned, crop residues. The 
production of them is growing every year as we increase yields 
for corn. It's about 100 pounds per acre per year. That's a 
significant amount of residue. Those residues can be harvested 
and they can be turned into biofuels, renewable natural gas, 
for example.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Ethanol.
    Dr. Castellano. Yeah, they could be. But that would be more 
than grain. In our area in Central Iowa, we have one plant, for 
example, Verbio, that is transforming the crop residues into 
renewable natural gas.
    And it's putting it directly into the pipeline. Not only--
the big point here is that not only is that good, but removing 
part of the residue also reduces greenhouse gas emissions 
directly from the field to the atmosphere which I pointed out 
is one of the hardest to abate sources of emissions in our 
economy writ large. And so there are multiple benefits for the 
farmer and other industries.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Great. Well, I will turn now to 
Senator Romney because I already recognized him while the 
question finished. Senator Marshall will be next and then 
Senator Padilla should he return.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROMNEY

    Senator Romney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you all 
probably know, my state is one of those that has been 
experiencing a great deal of drought. I'm from the state of 
Utah.
    Estimates are that this is the longest period of drought in 
the last hundreds of years, going back to 1500. And last couple 
of winters, we've had some relief. This last winter, snowpack 
was about 114 percent of normal.
    But that doesn't begin to overwhelm the challenges that 
we've had over a longer period of time. The state has taken a 
lot of action to try and address that. The legislature has 
changed water rights legislation.
    They put in place a trust fund to buy water rights. Some 
localities like South Jordan are reusing water in ways that are 
novel and creative. But it continues to be a real challenge. I 
guess I had thought as a non-climate scientist that with all 
the warming, there'd be more rain and things would get wetter.
    We keep on hearing about more storms and more violent 
storms and so forth. So wouldn't there be more water? Maybe 
there's more water in some places like Iowa or Nebraska or 
other places.
    But certainly in the American West, the intermountain west, 
we're seeing a lot less water. And I guess the question is, how 
is and can agriculture adapt to that kind of change? I mean, 
are you seeing it in other parts of the country?
    I'll turn to you, Mr. Richards, first. What can agriculture 
do in a setting where you don't know whether it's going to get 
wetter and wetter and wetter or drier and drier and drier? How 
do you accommodate that kind of disparity?
    Mr. Richards. Senator, thank you for the question. The 
history of American agriculture is one of doing more with less. 
And so we're very good at adapting and finding ways to be more 
productive, more efficient with the resources that we have.
    And I think you're exactly right. It's not just scarcity. 
It's the variability and the unpredictability of water 
shortages.
    And so the questions I have is, can farmers--family farmers 
who are just family businesses like my own, can we adapt fast 
enough? Can we change our business model, change our crop 
rotation, adjust how we're stewarding the soil and preparing it 
for the variability in the future? Can we do that fast enough?
    And so as your colleague asked earlier, I think that there 
are programs within USDA, within NRCS that can enhance and 
incentivize some of that adaptation. On the ground ultimately, 
though, we need investment in infrastructure and not just to 
save water but to manage it more collaboratively on basin-wide 
approaches which some of my colleagues here at the table also 
mentioned. And so in Central Oregon, we're finding ways for 
irrigation districts and other water users who normally would 
operate in isolation to work together and manage things more 
collaboratively and invest in major projects that completely 
transform the way that we're using water.
    Senator Romney. Thank you. Mr. Castellano, in Iowa, what 
are you experiencing there in terms of climate? And do what 
degree are farmers and ranchers able to adjust?
    Dr. Castellano. Thank you for the question, Senator Romney. 
Just like yesterday in our state, it's precipitation extremes, 
that is the biggest challenge for us, and of course, 
variability from drought to precipitation excess as well. We 
have a drainage infrastructure in our state just like 
everybody--every state in the United States does.
    We are using that drainage infrastructure to do things like 
drainage water recycling that we heard about earlier. We take 
the water that comes off the drains. Not only does that reduce 
nutrient loss downstream which is a big concern for our Gulf of 
Mexico as you're aware. So it mitigates that. It also can be 
fed back onto the system to benefit the crop productivity later 
in the year.
    Senator Romney. Thank you. I'd just note, Mr. Chairman, I 
think this is an important topic and I'm happy to learn about 
it and ask questions and learn from these members of the panel. 
I would note that I think perhaps Energy and Natural Resources 
(ENR) would be the committee that would be focused on this more 
than Budget. I'd hope that we in Budget can deal with the 1.15 
trillion-dollar deficit we have and trying to find some 
solutions to that because if we don't deal with that, we won't 
have the resources to be able to deal with emerging crises as 
they develop as a result of climate change and economic 
disruption of various kinds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. And thank you for accepting my 
invitation and coming in to discuss the prospect for reforms in 
healthcare. We can significantly reduce those at-year 
expenditures. I was grateful you took the time to come and join 
me during my office hours. Senator Marshall.

                 STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARSHALL

    Senator Marshall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks again 
to our panel for being here. Some of my questions may be 
redundant, so forgive me. As you imagine, we're running back 
and forth to other committee hearings this morning as well.
    I'll start with Mr. Richards. Look, I'm a fifth-generation 
farm kid. I don't remember a time in my life when there wasn't 
some place in Kansas that was suffering from drought.
    And my grandparents would say the same thing. Live through 
the dirty '30s and this and that. And I think you all would 
agree with me that the farmers and ranchers were the original 
conservationists.
    And given the tools and the flexibility, they're going to 
do what's right for the land and try to grow the most with the 
least possible. We're seeing great strides in precision 
agriculture. So many things are working good.
    And Mr. Richards, I assume that you use some of these 
conservation programs right now. How would you describe the 
flexibility portion of that? Are you able--do you feel like 
there's too many rules and regulations, any concerns going 
forward?
    Mr. Richards. Senator, thank you for the question. There's 
always opportunities to improve those programs. I do resemble 
your remarks in the sense that we're optimistic and we're 
always facing adversity and seeking ways to get better.
    The programs that exist are tremendously helpful through 
Farm Service Agency (FSA), the safety net that exists. I would 
say unfortunately those programs tend to be catered more 
towards commodity crops. In the west, we focus more on 
specialty crops.
    And so often those programs don't work as well or are 
difficult to navigate for those of us in the western state who 
grow smaller specialty crops. In terms of NRCS, similarly, 
those programs are very helpful in incentivizing conservation 
efforts, water and soil conservation. But often they don't work 
well on a short-term emergency basis.
    They're meant to or designed to incentivize paradigm shifts 
for farmers. But often especially with drought, we need to 
adapt right away. And so----
    Senator Marshall. Thank you. Dr. Castellano, again, many of 
these practices that are now being forced upon us have been 
things we've been doing for decades. 1991, I remember starting 
doing no-till farming on our farm. Cover crops, like, that's 
something new.
    But there are certain places in Kansas where that doesn't 
work. In the western third of the state, there's simply not 
enough moisture to do cover crops. Wherever we can, we do no-
till farming for a lot of reasons. A, it's economical, and B, 
it's also the great conservation.
    And here's my concern about the sustainable aviation fuel 
that they're requiring all these climate practices be done. 
It's, like, you can pick and choose. But again, there's just no 
way to do cover crops in the western third, western half of the 
state. So do you have any concern that losing, that's the right 
thing to do, that we'll be losing some of the opportunities 
here by adapting and required to adapt all these particulars?
    Dr. Castellano. Yes, Senator Marshall. I share your 
concern. I think it's a significant concern when we prescribe 
conservation practices without considering the system in which 
they're being placed.
    You made the anecdote about Kansas. I'll provide one about 
Iowa. No-tillage often doesn't work in North Central Iowa 
because it's too cold. It's too wet.
    We need to think about the full system. And those systems 
which are flat, erosion is not a problem, we think about other 
ways to warm up and dry out the soil and to get the crop 
planted. I'd like to say as you move towards rulemaking, 
towards the 45Z that we have to be thinking about field scale 
analysis, an accounting of greenhouse gas emissions and 
conservation practices, how they are effective in specific 
scenarios. That's the way we need to go.
    Senator Marshall. Yeah, I'm just as concerned about NRSC 
and FSA, whether it's the Environmental Quality Incentives 
Program (EQIP) program, whatever program it is. If we're over-
prescriptive, we're going to lose some of our farmers and 
ranchers because they can't do all of those things. Believe me, 
they would do them all if it's going to work.
    And last question and I'll stick with Dr. Castellano. Look, 
to do no-till farming, you have to have pesticides. You have to 
be able to kill the weeds and that type of thing.
    There's a lot of frustration in Kansas over the 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) again being over-
prescriptive. It's going to prevent us from doing some of these 
conservation projects we've been doing decades. How are we 
doing in Iowa? Any concern about that?
    Dr. Castellano. In Iowa, we have some concerns. In fact, we 
have seen increases in tillage in places where no-till works 
because of a lack of herbicide availability--effective 
herbicide availability.
    Senator Marshall. You got it. Yeah, it's too simple. Again, 
I think if we just give our farmers and ranchers the tools, 
they're going to do the right thing. What I see coming up in 
the next Farm Bill is we're being overly prescriptive. That 
very much concerns me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks Senator Marshall. Senator 
Padilla.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Colleagues, there 
are few places where the challenges of climate change, extreme 
weather, and fluctuations in precipitation are felt more 
acutely than in California. The corresponding water scarcity, 
insecurity has created some really challenging circumstances 
and at times some intense conflict for water users in 
California.
    You can see it from the Klamath River Basin, on the Oregon 
border to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and all the way down 
to the Colorado River and other places in between. That's why 
at last Congress I fought so relentlessly to ensure that the 
Inflation Reduction Act included funding for Interior to help 
regions experiencing not just drought but severe drought and to 
drive collaborative solutions to perennial water conflicts. Now 
just yesterday, I participated in a ceremony at the Department 
of Interior with some of our agricultural water users in the 
San Joaquin Valley to celebrate a historic agreement that 
leverages our Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) dollars to solve 
some of our trickiest water fights in the San Joaquin Valley.
    Mr. Hagekhalil, you've worked with Interior to leverage IRA 
investments to help alleviate Colorado River water conflicts 
with creative solutions. Can you speak to how important it is 
for Congress to continue providing this type of funding?
    Mr. Hagekhalil. Sure. I want to thank you for your 
leadership. And to me, yesterday's signing ceremony is an 
example of the collaboration. And I also want to say that 
Metropolitan two weeks ago signed Memorandum of Understanding 
(MOU) partnerships with the farmers in Central Valley and San 
Joaquin Valley to talk about how we can collaborate to address 
the issues of groundwater basins and how we can store water 
when we have it in the Central Valley to help the farmers help 
us and be able to leverage.
    And that's great collaboration adaptation to the changes 
that we're seeing. But on the front of the Colorado River is 
our farmers, as you heard, have been leading the way in 
conservation. But they can't do it alone, and they need the 
help financially.
    So we're working with the farmers in Palo Verde Irrigation 
District or Imperial Valley to implement. And we're able to 
actually invest a huge amount of money in conservation. But one 
of the things that we have done is actually work with the 
farmers to do what we call seasonal farming.
    And that means that if during the wintertime where the 
commodities and the vegetables are growing is really valuable 
across the nation, they can farm. But during the summer where 
there's a huge competition for whatever they're farming, we can 
keep the land idle and save that water and put it away. But we 
need to support them financially.
    What we've done is through this IRA, it helped them right 
now in getting the funding to conserve more water so we can put 
back in Lake Mead and not only serve California but served the 
entire southwest and help us come together.
    We're doing the same thing in the Border Irrigation 
District down by Yuma where by doing the seasonal farming, the 
farmers are taking some of the money that's being paid to them 
to line canals and be more efficient and implement on farm 
conservation and working with the tribes. The Quechan tribe by 
the Yuma area, we're also partnering with the Colorado River 
Indian Tribe.
    We met with them last week to find new ways of farming.
    But I think to me the money that we have from the IRA is 
helping bridge the gap. And when you go to communities that are 
farmers, behind every farm, there is communities and people 
that suffer.
    So Metropolitan invest a lot of money also in community 
benefits and trying to find ways to uplift people. And your 
funding from the IRA has been a huge help. And the Bureau of 
Reclamation's help has been great.
    Senator Padilla. That's great. I want to make sure I make 
time for one additional question relative to resources. But 
seasonal farming is a great example. We've been working 
together on multi-benefit or alternative use of fallowed lands 
as well.
    But it's not just funding for severe drought that I want to 
highlight today. Federal investment in water infrastructure as 
a whole has declined about 77 percent since its peak in the 
1970s. And although Congress has begun to rectify this by 
making transformational investments in water infrastructure 
through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we know that the 
funding through that measure is just a down payment.
    It's not the end all, be all. And it's critical that we 
continue to fund water infrastructure to help water systems 
become more resilient to climate change. A follow-up question 
to you, Adel. How can Congress best help water systems continue 
to drought proof their infrastructure?
    Mr. Hagekhalil. I mean, to me, the affordability question 
is huge. And I appreciate the bill you introduced, 3830. And 
for us to really, as you said, the federal help is a down 
payment. Most of the rate is going to be raised locally.
    But the biggest issue we have is there is communities are 
suffering that are working two jobs and they can't move. 
Whether it's San Fernando or Compton in our region. We need 
find ways to help them.
    So when we invest in the resiliency, we're talking about a 
30-billion-dollar investments we need to make. How can we do it 
without causing hardship on the communities that are 
underserved or disadvantaged? And getting the low income 
assistance program is going to help us increase the rates that 
we need to do without causing hardship on the communities that 
we serve.
    Senator Padilla. I'm glad you mentioned the low income. 
Chairman Whitehouse spoke to the need for a low income water 
assistance program earlier as well because you know whose 
hardest hit when it comes to these increased costs. The last 
question in closing is can you speak for a moment about the 
value or need to not just fund--make infrastructure investments 
but for the federal government to be partners in funding 
ongoing maintenance and operations?
    Mr. Hagekhalil. Yeah, it's critical. As part of the IRA 
funding, one of it is how we can reduce our dependence on 
imported water. And I'll give two examples.
    A number of communities in California are on groundwater 
wells. And a number of them are struggling with ensuring they 
maintain the water quality that we need in these wells whether 
it's because of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) or 
some contamination. And we have an interest in making sure 
those communities stay on groundwater because if they get off 
groundwater and these systems fail, they will have to go to 
import water which has a huge rate shock.
    So using the funding and we ask the Bureau of Reclamation 
to help us fund some of these communities in San Fernando and 
Compton and Fullerton and Santa Ana in our region to make sure 
that they stay on groundwater and protect them from the 
contamination and provide our communities safe water. So if we 
can continue those investments, we not only provide resiliency 
and response to that but also ensure that we are doing the 
right thing for our future and giving safe water for our 
communities.
    Senator Padilla. And one final thing, colleagues, for the 
committee to consider is pretty simple example of leaky pipes, 
right? In a drought stricken western United States, the last 
thing we can afford is to lose a significant amount of water 
supply due to leaky pipes which is simply a result of old 
infrastructure and deferred maintenance. And so if we're going 
to make these investments to upgrade to modernize our 
infrastructure, let's not make the same mistake again.
    The better we maintain, the less likely we're going to be 
in the situation in the near future of losing a precious 
resource which is something as simple as leaky pipes. With 
that, thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Excellent words to end on. I want to 
thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee today. 
Their full written statements are a part of the record.
    As information for all senators, questions for the record 
are due by 12:00 noon tomorrow with signed hard copies 
delivered to the committee clerk in Dirksen 624. Emailed copies 
are also fine. We ask the witnesses if you receive questions 
for the record to respond timely, specifically within seven 
days of receipt.
    With no further business before the committee, I again 
thank the witnesses and the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., Wednesday, May 22, 2024, the 
hearing was adjourned.]

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