[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 7 (Wednesday, January 19, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the Department of the Interior issued an 
announcement yesterday that perfectly illustrates the irrationality of 
our current approach to water issues.
  California's precipitation this season has gone off the charts. 
Statewide, snow water content is 198 percent of normal. The all-
important northern Sierra snowpack is 174 percent of normal. This is 
not only a wet year, it is one of the wettest years on record.
  Yet yesterday, we have this announcement from the Department of the 
Interior that despite a nearly unprecedented abundance of water, the 
Bureau of Reclamation will only guarantee delivery of 45 percent of the 
central valley of California's contracted water supply south of the 
Delta. This is the same percentage they received last year that had 
barely average rainfall.
  This is of crucial importance to the entire Nation since the central 
valley of California is one of the largest producers of our Nation's 
food supply. California produces half of the U.S. grown fruits and nuts 
and vegetables on the Nation's grocery shelves, and the prices you pay 
are directly affected by the California harvest.
  The deliberate decision by this administration in 2009 and 2010 to 
divert hundreds of billions of gallons of water away from the central 
valley destroyed a quarter million acres of the most productive 
farmland in America, it threw tens of thousands of families into 
unemployment, and it affected grocery prices across the country.
  At the time the administration blamed a mild drought but never 
explained why a drought justified their decision to pour 200 billion 
gallons of water that we did have directly into the Pacific Ocean. In a 
rational world, a drought means that you are more careful not to waste 
the water that you have.
  Of course, the real reason for this irrational policy is that they 
were indulging the environmental left's pet cause, a 3-inch minnow 
called the Delta Smelt. Diverting precious water to the Delta Smelt 
habitat was considered more important than producing the food that 
feeds the country and preserving the jobs that produce the food.
  But that issue is now moot. This year we have nearly twice the normal 
water supply at this point in the season, and yet the Department of the 
Interior will allow less than half of the normal water deliveries to 
California's central valley agriculture south of the Delta.
  The difference comes to 1.1 million acre-feet of water.
  Now, consider this. Since December 1, the Central Valley Project has 
released 1.4 million acre-feet more water into the Pacific Ocean than 
they did just last year. Let me repeat that. At the same time this 
administration is denying California central valley agriculture 1.1 
million acre-feet of their rightfully contracted water during one of 
the wettest years on record, it is dumping 1.4 million acre-feet of 
additional water into the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Speaker, this is insane.
  Coleridge's lament, ``Water, water everywhere but not a drop to 
drink,'' appears to have become the policy of this administration.

                              {time}  1900

  The American people did not invest billions of dollars into Federal 
water projects so that water can be dumped into the ocean to please 
environmental extremists. This policy may have been cheered by the 
previous Congress, but it won't be tolerated by the new majority, nor 
by the American people.
  There was a time when the principal objective of Federal water policy 
was to assure an abundance of water to support a growing population and 
a flourishing economy. But in recent years, a radical and retrograde 
ideology took root in our public policy that abandoned abundance as the 
object of our water policy and replaced it with the government 
rationing of government-created shortages. I cannot imagine a more 
disturbing example of this ideology at work than the announcement 
yesterday by the Department of the Interior. Even faced with a super-
abundance of water, they are determined to create and then to ration 
water shortages. The American people expect better and they deserve 
better.
  They deserve a government dedicated to restoring jobs, and 
prosperity, and abundance, all of which is well within our reach if we 
will simply reverse the folly that was on full display with yesterday's 
announcement. Ironically, this announcement came on the same day that 
the President ordered his agencies to identify regulatory policies that 
are harming the economy. Mr. Speaker, it appears the Department of the 
Interior missed that memo.

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