[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 92 (Wednesday, July 10, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       WATER RIGHTS IN CALIFORNIA

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                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 10, 2002

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, the following editorial was written by my 
fellow colleague from California, Representative George Miller. It was 
published in The Los Angeles Times on June 20, 2002 under the title, 
``Damming the Money Stream of the Water Profiteers.''
  I commend Representative Miller for eloquently addressing the issue 
of water rights in California. I support the conviction that 
California's water belongs to all Californians. We should not allow big 
agribusiness to profit off antiquated government subsidies at the 
expense of California's water-strapped communities and family farms.
  The following is a reprinted version of Mr. Miller's editorial:

              [From the Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2002]

            Damming the Money Stream of the Water Profiteers

                           (By George Miller)

       Californians who recently learned a very expensive lesson 
     about futures trading from Enron Corp. may soon get a second 
     dose of market manipulation, this time courtesy of the 
     federal government.
       Instead of watching out for the water needs--and 
     pocketbooks--of taxpayers, the Department of the Interior may 
     soon sign long-term water contracts that provide 
     multimillion-dollar windfalls to agricultural corporations at 
     the expense of cities and consumers.
       A hundred years ago, Congress made a bargain with farmers 
     in the dry West: Taxpayers would subsidize dams, canals and 
     water to promote settlement and irrigate family farms. In 
     return, farmers would have to repay only a fraction of the 
     true cost of the investment. The subsidies were locked into 
     long-term contracts that the Interior Department signed with 
     water districts promising to deliver millions of acre-feet.
       Yet for decades, some reclamation beneficiaries in 
     California's Central Valley have been farming the taxpayers 
     as much as the land.
       Huge companies maneuvered to capture the multibillion-
     dollar subsidy intended for family farmers, leading Congress 
     to close the loopholes and reduce the subsidies that 
     encourage overuse of water resources.
       Now the original water contracts are expiring, and Interior 
     must negotiate new contracts under much tighter terms 
     dictated by a historic 1992 water reform law. Given the 
     growing demand for water throughout the state, some of these 
     giant farm operations have a new scheme for enriching 
     themselves at public expense: Instead of using subsidized 
     water for growing crops, they want to sell some of their 
     government-provided water back to the government--or to 
     water-short cities or farms--for huge profits.
       Bennett Raley, who is in charge of the federal water 
     program at the Interior Department, approves. ``We believe in 
     the free market,'' Raley says. ``It's their water.'' Well, 
     actually, it isn't ``their'' water.
       The water originates in the mountains and the rivers of 
     this great state. It belongs not to any particular contractor 
     or farmer but to all the people of California, who paid for 
     its development, storage and delivery with costly subsidies. 
     The Interior Department's customers enjoy the use of the 
     water only because of their contracts with the government, 
     and those contracts now need to be renegotiated.
       The government signed contracts to provide subsidized water 
     for food and fiber production, not to award a public resource 
     to a particular group that could convert it into an annuity 
     for personal profit. If there is a market in California for 
     $1,000 an acre-foot--and there is--why would any responsible 
     federal official sign a 25-year contract to sell water to 
     farming concerns that will resell it for a profit of 800% or 
     1,000%?
       If the water market is that healthy, why shouldn't the 
     taxpayers, who built and subsidized the projects in the first 
     place, get to sell the water for a large profit?
       If the contractor's intent in signing a new contract is 
     merely to market a portion of the water, then, learning from 
     the Enron example, we should not be concentrating public 
     resources in the hands of a few private individuals.
       Yet farming interests, many with long-standing ties to the 
     Bush administration, are pressuring federal officials to sign 
     new contracts that deliver them control of vast amounts of 
     water.
       Water is already an overcommitted resource in California, 
     with competing interests divided among cities, agriculture, 
     industry and the environment. Global warming has raised 
     concerns of diminished Sierra snowpacks and runoffs in the 
     future, which would reduce our ability to fill our 
     reservoirs.
       Surely this is not the time for responsible government 
     officials to commit water to one group of contractors and 
     force the rest of the state to cut deals that enrich private 
     interests from the sale of public resources.
       Doesn't it make sense for Raley and his co-workers at the 
     Interior Department to use great caution in deciding how much 
     of the public's subsidized water to include in those new 
     contracts, instead of promising vast volumes that irrigators 
     will turn around and resell--perhaps even to the government--
     at a huge profit?
       It's not their water, Mr. Raley, unless you give it away.

       

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