[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 WELFARE REFORM FOR WESTERN WATER CHEATS

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                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 4, 1995
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, while the House has been 
rushing to cut child care, school lunches, and a host of other programs 
for poor people, the Bureau of Reclamation has been quietly writing the 
last chapter of new rules that will help eliminate one of the most 
abused subsidy programs in government. If you want to hunt down welfare 
cheats, look to California's Central Valley, where the Federal 
Government doles out millions of taxpayer dollars each year in the form 
of illegal water subsidies to a few selected owners of corporate farm 
operations. The water subsidy abuses have for years been a huge 
embarrassment of Presidents of both political parties. But the Clinton 
administration has published new regulations that will once and for all 
close the loopholes in the Federal Water Program. The San Diego Union 
last week published an insightful description of this resource ripoff. 
I urge my colleagues to closely read the following editorial.
           [From the San Diego Union-Tribune, Mar. 29, 1995]

                       Redistribute State's Water


             large corporate farms should not be subsidized

       The future of San Diego County, and all of Southern 
     California, depends on water. In average years, we can supply 
     only 5 percent to 10 percent of our own needs. We have to 
     import the rest from Northern California and the Colorado 
     River.
       Teh first thing businesses must know before they can 
     operate in San Diego is whether they will have a guaranteed 
     water supply in the future. Without that, little else 
     matters. As San Diego continues to grow, and as our economic 
     future increasingly depends on attracting new business or 
     expanding existing ones, a guaranteed water supply will 
     become more important than ever.
       California has plenty of water for San Diego and everybody 
     else, but for decades it has been locked up in the Central 
     Valley. Agriculture uses about 80 percent of all the water 
     delivered in California, and Central Valley agriculture 
     accounts for most of that.
       In the Central Valley, most farmers get water subsidized by 
     taxpayers. Some pay as little as $10 to $20 per acre-foot. 
     Contrast that with farmers in San Diego County, who pay the 
     same retail rate as the city--$550 to $700 per acre-foot.
       The artificially low water rates in the Central Valley, 
     locked in by contracts as long as 40 years, help explain why 
     so much of the state's water never gets south of the 
     Tehachapi Mountains. At such cheap prices, there is no 
     incentive for farmers to conserve. But there is plenty of 
     incentive to waste water by farming marginal land and growing 
     water-intensive crops in a virtual desert.
       In recent years, the Central Valley's grip on the state's 
     water supply has begun to loosen. In 1992, President Bush 
     signed the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which for 
     the first time allowed Central Valley farmers to sell their 
     water to cities.
       Now, the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of 
     Reclamation is moving to undo a decades-old inequity that has 
     allowed huge corporate farms to skirt acreage limits for 
     subsidized water. If the feds are successful, Central Valley 
     farmers will have even more impetus to sell water to cities 
     like San Diego.
       Federally subsidized water was only supposed to be for 
     small, family farms. Up until 1982, the limit was 160 acres, 
     although it was almost universally ignored. Then it was 
     raised to 960 acres, but huge farms of thousands of acres 
     continued receiving taxpayer-subsidized water by simply 
     dividing their land into 960-acre trusts in the names of 
     family members. One of the nation's largest corporate farms, 
     J.G. Boswell, sold its acreage to its employees' trust fund. 
     It was all done on paper; nothing changed on the ground.
       The Bureau of Reclamation, which for years winked at such 
     practices, now intends to crack down on them. Central Valley 
     farmers will fight back with their substantial political 
     clout. But the Bureau of Reclamation should hang tough.
       Taxpayers should not be subsidizing huge corporate farms. 
     But there also must be a free-market redistribution of water 
     resources in California.
       California's cities are the industrial and commercial 
     engines that drive the state's economy. To survive and 
     prosper, San Diego and other cities need more Central Valley 
     water. Eliminating taxpayer subsidies for huge corporate 
     farms would free up water for cities. Federal officials 
     should strictly enforce the 960-acre limit for subsidized 
     water.


     

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