[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 111 (Tuesday, September 19, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7747-H7749]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        CHANDLER PUMPING PLANT WATER EXCHANGE FEASIBILITY STUDY

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 3986) to provide for a study of the engineering feasibility 
of a water exchange in lieu of electrification of the Chandler Pumping 
Plant at Prosser Diversion Dam, Washington, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 3986

         Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
     of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. CHANDLER PUMPING PLANT AND POWERPLANT OPERATIONS 
                   AT PROSSER DIVERSION DAM, WASHINGTON.

       Section 1208 of Public Law 103-434 (108 Stat. 4562) is 
     amended--
       (1) in subsection (a)--
       (A) in the subsection heading, by inserting ``or Water 
     Exchange'' after ``Electrification'';
       (B) by redesignating paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) as 
     subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C), respectively, and indenting 
     appropriately;
       (C) by striking ``In order to'' and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(1) Electrification.--In order to''; and
       (D) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(2) Water exchange alternative.--
       ``(A) In general.--As an alternative to the measures 
     authorized under paragraph (1) for electrification, the 
     Secretary is authorized to use not more than $4,000,000 of 
     sums appropriated under paragraph (1) to study the 
     engineering feasibility of exchanging water from the Columbia 
     River for water historically diverted from the Yakima River.
       ``(B) Requirements.--In carrying out subparagraph (A), the 
     Secretary, in coordination with the Kennewick Irrigation 
     District and in consultation with the Bonneville Power 
     Administration, shall--
       ``(i) prepare a report that describes project benefits and 
     contains feasibility level designs and cost estimates;
       ``(ii) secure the critical right-of-way areas for the 
     pipeline alignment;
       ``(iii) prepare an environmental assessment; and
       ``(iv) conduct such other studies or investigations as are 
     necessary to develop a water exchange.'';
       (2) in subsection (b)--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``or water exchange'' 
     after ``electrification''; and
       (B) in the second sentence of paragraph (2)(A), by 
     inserting ``or the equivalent of the rate'' before the 
     period;
       (3) in subsection (d), by striking ``electrification,'' 
     each place it appears and inserting ``electrification or 
     water exchange''; and
       (4) in subsection (d), by striking ``of the two'' and 
     inserting ``thereof''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Idaho (Mr. Simpson) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).


                             General Leave

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3986.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Idaho?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3986 authorizes a study of the feasibility of 
exchanging water diverted from the Yakima River for use by two 
irrigation districts for water from the Columbia River. The study would 
be conducted as part of the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement 
Project. The legislation will promote salmon recovery in the Yakima 
River without reducing the amount of water available to irrigators.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Hastings).
  (Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of 
H.R. 3986. I thank the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) for yielding 
me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, as Members know, the preservation of salmon in the 
Pacific Northwest is one of my top priorities in this Congress. I am 
convinced that we can save this national treasure while also preserving 
the jobs and quality of life of Pacific Northwest residents. My 
legislation is just one example of the benefits that could be attained 
for salmon by interested parties working together at the local level.
  Very simply, Mr. Speaker, my legislation authorizes a study of the 
feasibility of exchanging water diverted from the Yakima River for use 
by the Kennewick and Columbia Irrigation Districts for water from the 
Columbia River. The study would be conducted as part of the Bureau of 
Reclamation's Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project, a series of 
projects authorized by Congress to improve water quality and quantity 
in the Yakima River. These two systems currently take their water from 
the lower Yakima River where flows have already been decreased because 
of upriver diversions. By taking water from the much larger volume of 
the Columbia River, the impact on threatened and endangered species 
would be significantly reduced.
  Specifically, this project provides the opportunity to increase 
Yakima River flows at Prosser Dam during critical low flow periods by 
up to 750 cubic feet per second. This approach will provide over twice 
as much flow augmentation as the previously approved electrification 
project and could completely eliminate the Yakima River diversion for 
the Kennewick Irrigation District. A new pump station and pressure 
pipeline from the Columbia River will be the cornerstone of a more 
salmon-friendly Kennewick Irrigation District.
  This project is a winner for both fish and water users. It balances 
the need to improve habitat for threatened species while protecting 
water rights. Preliminary results from a lower reach habitat study 
indicate that these increased flows would greatly help salmon and bull 
trout. In addition, this proposal would provide substantial water 
quality improvements in the Yakima River.
  It is important to note that a change in the diversion for the 
Kennewick Irrigation District from the Yakima River to the Columbia 
River will completely change the current operational philosophy for the 
district. It will evolve from a relatively simple gravity system to one 
of significant complexity involving a major pump station and pressure 
pipeline to the major feeder canals. This remodeling will have a 
significant impact on the existing system and its users during 
construction, start-up and transition. That is why it is essential for 
the Kennewick Irrigation District to be in a position to develop these 
facilities in the way that best fits its current and future operational 
goals and causes the least disruption to district water users. That is 
why this legislation requires the Bureau of Reclamation to give the 
Kennewick Irrigation District substantial control over the planning and 
design work in this study with the Bureau having the final approval. 
This approach will ensure continued involvement and support which is 
vital to the success of this project.
  I might add, Mr. Speaker, that this bill has been going through the 
process on both the Republican and Democrat side. When you talk about 
water issues in the Pacific Northwest, you tend to polarize people in 
different approaches.

[[Page H7748]]

 This bill and what it tries to do is unique in that it has broad 
support from virtually everybody involved in water issues in the 
Northwest. From the Bureau of Reclamation to the American Rivers, 
National Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Yakima Nation, the 
Department of Ecology within Washington State, the Northwest Power 
Planning Council, the Washington State Water Resources Council, the 
Yakima Basin Joint Board of Irrigation. If we put all of these people 
together in a room on any other water issues, we would be bound to have 
polarization. But on this one because it does have the potential of 
augmenting flows in a river that needs more flows and saving salmon, to 
me it seems it is the right thing to do.
  I urge my colleagues to support this. I want to thank the Committee 
on Resources for their work and support in getting this bill out of 
committee in a unanimous, bipartisan way.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Washington I think has properly 
explained the legislation and the purposes of the legislation and the 
intent with which it is offered before the House. I do not disagree 
with that. I, however, will ask Members to vote against this 
legislation, especially Members of our caucus. I do so not because of 
the content of the bill but because of the manner in which Democratic 
Members of the committee and of our caucus have been treated in this 
committee in terms of the scheduling of legislation that has been 
offered by Democratic Members of the House. Much of that legislation is 
essentially noncontroversial but important in those particular 
districts, and we continue to have a gross disparity both in the 
treatment in the committee and on the floor of the House.
  As I have noticed and the leadership has agreed to, we would ask 
Members to vote against this legislation until such time as we can get 
a fairer treatment of pending legislation as we come to the closing 
days of this session. We have asked continuously, we have sent numerous 
letters to the chairman asking for hearings on various pieces of 
legislation. Those hearings have not been granted. Again many of those 
bills are noncontroversial. Then we are told because they do not have 
hearings, they cannot come to the floor. Yet we constantly are 
considering bills from the other side, without hearings on the floor, 
many of which have not even been heard in the committee.
  Last week, 18 Republican bills were scheduled and no House bills, one 
Senate Democratic bill was scheduled and dealt with. Tomorrow there are 
scheduled to be 15 Republican bills and six Democratic bills. It is 
very clear that if we continue this, there will be many members of the 
Democratic Caucus who have matters pending before the committee and the 
House that simply will not be considered before the clock runs out. I 
think we can do better. We have done better in past sessions of the 
Congress. I would encourage at least the members of our caucus to vote 
against the consideration of this and the next bill on the suspension 
calendar later today when we have a recorded vote on this matter.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
I find it interesting that the gentleman from California urges his 
Members to vote against a bill which he considers to be a good bill 
simply because he disagrees with the procedure and the proportion of 
bills that have been presented on the floor from each party. He calls 
that a gross disparity. Yesterday, there were five bills considered on 
this floor that were Republican bills out of the Committee on Resources 
and four bills that were Democratic bills that were considered on this 
floor out of the Committee on Resources.
  I would point out to the gentleman from California that in this 
Congress, we have had more than twice as many Democratic bills on this 
floor under the suspension rule as there were the last time his party 
controlled this body. More than twice as many. I think that we have 
been more than fair with the minority party under the suspension rule 
and the number of bills that come out. In fact, the gentleman 
recognizes that tomorrow over a third of the bills on the agenda in the 
Committee on Resources are from the minority party. So while the 
gentleman raises an issue which is always of concern to the minority 
party, and rightfully of concern to the minority party, I think he 
makes a fallacy in his argument that we have not been fair to the 
minority party. I wish he would reconsider and look at the merits of 
the bills rather than the procedures by which they get here.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  Just in quick response, I would say that obviously the number of 
suspension bills is greater because this committee really only does 
business by suspension and that is obviously their prerogative. I would 
also say that I appreciate yesterday's schedule. That was negotiated. 
That was negotiated with notice. However, amendments were offered 
without notice. Last week it was 16-zip. Obviously we continue to fall 
further and further behind. I appreciate it is a third of the bills and 
the gentleman is contending that is fair. We represent half of the 
Congress, half of the people in the Nation, and we are put in the 
position now as this session comes to a close as I said before that 
many members of this caucus had bills that were important to them and 
their district, not of great controversy, not of great ideological 
battle and to date we have not been able to get those matters put 
before the House.
  I would again urge the members of our caucus to oppose the two bills 
offered by the Committee on Resources. This does not go to other 
matters on the suspension calendar, because that is the purview of 
those committees. But with respect to these two matters from the 
Committee on Resources, I would urge a no vote so that we can get 
consideration of the members of the caucus's bills that are still 
pending.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Again I would point out, the gentleman raises an issue which ought to 
always be of concern from the minority side of the aisle, whoever is in 
the minority. But again I would point out that bills under 
consideration by this Congress, 23.4 percent have been Democratic 
bills. The last time his party controlled this body, 11.8 percent of 
the bills were Republican bills. I think that we have been more than 
fair. He said that last week there were 16 bills and none of them were 
Democratic. I would remind the Member that one of them was from the 
minority leader in the Senate, Senator Daschle. I believe that that is 
a member of his party.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. If the gentleman will yield, I said 
that that bill had been dealt with, a Senate bill, a Democratic bill. 
That does not solve the problem for Members of the House.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I would just point out that these bills 
ought to be based on their merits. This is a good bill. The gentleman 
from California (Mr. George Miller) has recognized that this is a good 
bill, and we ought to consider it and not vote against it simply 
because he does not like the procedure by which the bills have come to 
the floor.
  Last week we have, as I understand it, in the Committee on Resources 
asked the minority party for bills they would like to have put on the 
agenda, no bills were proposed from the minority party to put on the 
agenda, and, consequently, none were.
  As I said earlier, we have five Republican bills tomorrow. A third of 
the bills that are on the agenda are Democratic bills, and I am glad 
that the gentleman forwarded those to us so we could consider them 
tomorrow, and they will be considered in a fair and appropriate manner.
  Mr. Speaker, we will not reject them simply because they come from 
the minority party. We will look at them on the merits of the bill 
itself, so I would urge the Members not to get into this debate of 
killing bills simply because they are from one party or the other, but 
look at the bills on the merits of the bills.
  I do not think the people of this country expect us to get into these 
types of partisan debates about whose bill it is. I expect that they 
expect us

[[Page H7749]]

to look at the merits of the legislation and pass them if they are good 
bills, and this is a good bill, as admitted by the gentleman from 
California.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 
minutes to continue this dialogue.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say that the speech that the gentleman just gave 
with respect to this bill and other bills about being considered on the 
merit is the reason we are asking Members to vote against these bills 
so that the Democratic Members can have their bills heard on the 
merits, marked up on the merits and voted up or down on the merits in 
the full House, that has not happened.
  The gentleman can go on and on about 23 percent of the bills. The 
fact of the matter is we are half of the Congress, and there is a good 
number of Democratic bills that are languishing for no other reason 
than I guess that they are Democratic bills. I do not know how that 
determination is made, but obviously they have not been allowed to be 
considered on the merits.
  Mr. Speaker, I would hope the Members would understand that there is 
very little else we can do other than to refuse to pass these bills 
until we get that kind of consideration to protect the rights of the 
minority Members of the House of Representatives, and I think it is 
important that we do that.
  I think those Members were elected by the same number of people that 
others were elected by and their bills ought to be considered on the 
merit. Again, these are not great controversial bills. These are bills 
that are important to local districts, just as the ones before us today 
are, but they have not been accorded the same rights and privileges 
and, therefore, I would ask the members of the caucus and others, if 
they would like, to join us to vote against these two bills from the 
Committee on Resources.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I am pleased to listen to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and his change of heart 
from being 6 years in the minority, because it did not appear this way 
when he was in the majority, as I mentioned earlier, and I will 
continue to mention, that more than twice as many bills of the minority 
have come up under this Congress than came up the last time his body 
controlled the House of Representatives.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Hastings).
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Idaho (Mr. Simpson) for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I find this argument rather interesting, and I 
understand inside-the-Beltway politics, as far as getting your time on 
the floor, but on this bill particularly, I just want to make a point 
to my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), 
because I know that he worked very hard on the original bill when it 
passed back in 1993 and 1994, and in my time in this Congress, I have 
heard the gentleman from California say it once and I probably dare to 
say I heard him say it a million times that we need to save the salmon, 
we cannot wait, we have to do it, time is of the essence on all of 
these issues.
  Mr. Speaker, here we have a situation where we clearly have a 
potential answer, and the remark I would say is that I do not think the 
salmon really care about inside-the-Beltway politics, but I do know 
that this issue has to be dealt with, and this is a proper way to deal 
with it.
  So notwithstanding the request on the other side, I would urge my 
colleagues to support this bill, because on its merits, from the 
standpoint of the environment, from the standpoint of saving fish, from 
the standpoint of expanding water quality, this meets to the ``T'' with 
strong bipartisan support.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that this is a good piece of 
legislation, and I think both sides recognize that this is a good piece 
of legislation. We can wrap all the rhetoric around this that we would 
like, we need to pass this bill and do what we can to help save the 
salmon. I hope the Members will support this.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Linder). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3986, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the 
yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________