[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3489-H3491]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1415
       ENDANGERED FISH RECOVERY PROGRAMS IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2010

  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass 
the bill (H.R. 2288) to amend Public Law 106-392 to maintain annual 
base funding for the Upper Colorado and San Juan fish recovery programs 
through fiscal year 2023, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 2288

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

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

        This Act may be cited as the ``Endangered Fish Recovery 
     Programs Improvement Act of 2010''.

     SEC. 2. REAUTHORIZATION OF FISH RECOVERY PROGRAMS.

        Section 3(d)(2) of Public Law 106-392 (114 Stat. 1604 and 
     1605) is amended by inserting at the end the following: ``For 
     fiscal years 2012 through 2023, there are hereby authorized 
     to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to provide 
     for the annual base funding for the Recovery Implementation 
     Programs above and beyond the continued use of power revenues 
     to fund the operation and maintenance of capital projects and 
     monitoring.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
California (Mrs. Napolitano) and the gentleman from California (Mr. 
McClintock) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California.


                             General Leave

  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2288, introduced by our colleague 
Representative John Salazar from Colorado and seven other colleagues, 
would amend Public Law 106-392 to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
years 2012 to 2023 to fund fish recovery programs in the Upper Colorado 
and the San Juan River Basins.
  H.R. 2288 will help ensure the continued delivery of water from 
Federal water projects to irrigators and municipal and industrial 
contractors throughout the Upper Colorado River Basin through fiscal 
year 2023. More than 1,500 water projects will continue to have 
certainty to move forward, based on the support and commitments 
generated through these recovery programs.
  These recovery programs are nationally recognized examples of diverse 
stakeholders coming together to collaboratively find solutions without 
litigation that allow everyone to use the river systems to promote 
economic growth while supporting compliance with the Endangered Species 
Act and the recovery of native fish species within the Colorado River 
Basin.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support the passage of H.R. 2288, 
and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  This measure offers yet another example of how the Endangered Species 
Act has put a gun to the head of the West. The unreasonable effect of 
this

[[Page H3490]]

law is now impoverishing millions of people across the country. In 
California communities, it has devastated the agricultural sector of 
our economy, and it threatens us all with permanent water shortages, 
skyrocketing food prices, and chronic unemployment.
  The measure before us today seeks to spend roughly $40 million 
through 2023 for research, management, operation, and maintenance and 
other annual noncapital expenditures in order to keep ESA litigation at 
bay in the Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins. It's cosponsored 
by Representatives of both parties, not because it will produce a 
single drop of additional water for this region but, rather, because it 
will forestall additional endless ESA lawsuits.
  These programs only exist and only command bipartisan support because 
these steps are mandated by the ESA under threat of the region losing 
further access to its own water. And at some point, we're going to have 
to consider major changes to the ESA before it further depresses our 
economy, strangles our agriculture, and depletes our Treasury.
  Let me offer one of the examples of changes that I think needs to be 
made. The administration is now pursuing the deliberate destruction of 
four perfectly good hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River that 
generate 155 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the 
planet at the cost to ratepayers and taxpayers of nearly $500 million 
to tear down. This is to restore fish habitat for a few hundred salmon. 
When I visited the region a few weeks ago, I asked, If the salmon 
population was in decline, why don't we just build a fish hatchery? The 
Macaulay fish hatchery in Juneau, for example, produces 170 million 
salmon every year. And the answer was, We already have a fish hatchery 
below the dams at Iron Gate, but the Endangered Species Act doesn't 
allow us to count the millions of fish that it produces. This is 
insane.
  In this case, it's going to cost us $40 million, according to the 
CBO, on a program that lacks explicit goals and is running outrageous 
overhead--22 percent in one case. Now, let me emphasize this: This 
program doesn't even set specific recovery goals, so there's no 
rational way of judging success or failure either now or in the future. 
It is simply a bureaucratic perpetual spending machine.

  The good news is, this program does include fish hatcheries, but 
without any numerical standard for success, their production becomes 
irrelevant to the program. We're squandering the earnings of our 
citizens on bureaucratic paperwork and Rube Goldberg contraptions with 
no rational standard for success instead of investing that money for 
new water supplies.
  This bill continues a folly that our Nation and our economy can no 
longer afford. I realize that many of the supporters feel that this is 
the path of least resistance within the current legal framework in 
order to continue to use the water projects that we've already paid 
for. Well, that may be the case. But the path of least resistance is 
destroying our economy, bankrupting our country, and perhaps it's time 
we took the path less well traveled, the path of common sense.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, I won't go into any other dialogue 
other than to yield, for as much time as he may consume, to the 
gentleman from Colorado, Congressman Salazar.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished 
chairwoman of the subcommittee for moving this important bill forward. 
I would like to share with you and my esteemed colleagues the 
importance of the Upper Colorado River and San Juan River Basin 
Endangered Fish Recovery Program. This program is a premiere example of 
how to recover endangered fish species while also providing more than 3 
million acre-feet of water per year to Federal, tribal, and non-Federal 
water projects. It has been cited as the most successful fish recovery 
program in the United States and is used as a model for other recovery 
programs developed across the country.
  Today I am happy to see that the House is passing H.R. 2288, to 
ensure the program can finish the restoration projects identified for 
complete success. This bill extends the authorization of the program 
until the year 2023. At that time, the fish species in concern will be 
fully recovered, and the infrastructure will be in place to ensure 
continued success. The projects completed to date on the Upper Colorado 
and San Juan River Basins are examples of outstanding cooperation among 
a diverse group of local, State, Federal Government agencies, 
environmental groups, water users, farmers, ranchers, and utility 
consumers.
  People ask why they've never heard of the recovery program, and that 
is because it has been so successful. The fish identified as being 
under threat have been substantially maintained. This bill is critical 
for the continued and final success of the projects necessary for 
recovery of the endangered fish.
  I would also like to note that when this program was enacted, it was 
done with the understanding that power revenues would be used to pay 
for the costs of implementing the two fish recovery programs. Due to 
PAYGO rules, the legislation now lets the power customers only pay a 
part of the cost of these programs while national taxpayers cover the 
rest. The original program was agreed to based upon the understanding 
that power customers would pay for the fish recovery programs, and I 
hope that they will work with the rest of the parties to fulfill this 
funding obligation after 2011.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a prime example of how one ounce of prevention 
is worth a pound of cure. It is one of the most successful recovery 
programs in the entire country, and I want to thank the chairwoman, and 
I want to thank Ranking Member McClintock for working with us on this 
legislation.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kind 
words, but I do wonder how he can define success in a program that has 
no standards for success. I also need to correct him on one other 
point, and that is the claim that this will provide or produce 3 
million acre-feet of water. It does no such thing. All it does is allow 
us to continue to use the 3 million acre-feet of water that we already 
produce and that we have already paid for without impediments posed by 
additional ESA litigation.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I yield, for as much time as he may consume, to the 
gentleman from Colorado, Congressman Salazar.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I thank the chairwoman.
  I want to remind the ranking member that the individual who actually 
ran against me who was the Department of Natural Resources director, 
Greg Walcher, for Colorado was one of the ones who helped to implement 
this program in Colorado, a very strong supporter. This was done in a 
bipartisan way, and most recovery programs are actually starting to be 
modeled after the Upper Colorado Fish Recovery Program. This is a way 
to keep fish from going on the endangered species list, and so I am 
very proud of this program.
  We do have goals. By the year 2023, everything should be in place. 
The infrastructure should be in place so that we can maintain the 
numbers of the endangered fish in the Upper Colorado River and the San 
Juan.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I readily concede that if you put a gun 
to somebody's head, you can get reasonable people to do unreasonable 
things. The ESA is a gun to the head of the people of the West. It's 
time we did something about that.
  No one suggests that there's not an important mission for the ESA, 
but it has gotten completely out of control. It has breached all bounds 
of reason and logic, and it is time that we visited that issue rather 
than continue to squander tens of millions of dollars on programs like 
this, whose sole purpose is simply to keep that ESA litigation at bay.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I will yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I just wanted to thank the gentleman for joining us 
yesterday in Colorado for a specific water hearing that the gentlelady 
held in Greeley, Colorado, a prime example of how we can all work 
together to make sure that agriculture can maintain its water rights. 
So that is why I am so supportive of this program.

[[Page H3491]]

  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Does the gentlelady have any additional speakers?
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I have no further requests for time, and I reserve 
the balance of my time.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Speaker, Congressman Salazar was right. We met 
yesterday in Greeley, Colorado, with a lot of stakeholders of the 
Colorado River Basin who indicated to us that their economy is at 
stake. They professed to us that the Endangered Species Act actually 
helped maintain the quality of the water in the rivers. So, to me, 
that's a further indication of how important this particular bill is, 
to continue the collaboration of all the entities who would come to the 
table, put their differences aside and quit getting into litigation 
that is more costly to the taxpayer.
  With that, I request that we support H.R. 2288.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano) that the House suspend 
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 2288, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. 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.

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