[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 69 (Thursday, May 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H3944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       PUTTING FISH BEFORE PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, California is suffering one of the worse 
droughts in its history. More than a half-million acres of the most 
fertile farmland in the Nation have been devastated. Some Central 
Valley farmers have been notified that they will receive zero water 
allocations from the Federal system. The owners of long-held water 
rights are being cut off.
  In some communities ``water police'' go from door to door to enforce 
water restrictions. Homeowners are forbidden to water their lawns, 
except under the most rigid constraints. Sacramento offers an app so 
they can turn in their neighbors to the water authorities.
  And yet, knowing full well that we are facing a devastating drought 
and that our dwindling water supply will be desperately needed by our 
people this summer, over the past several weeks the Bureau of 
Reclamation has released 70,000 acre-feet of water from dams on the 
American and Stanislaus Rivers to meet environmental demands that place 
fish above people.
  This is enough water to meet the annual needs of a city of half a 
million people, all sacrificed in order to flush salmon smolts to the 
ocean, where they tend to swim anyway, and keep the river at the right 
temperature for the comfort of the fish.
  The releases of this water are so enormous they are called ``pulse 
flows.'' Citizens are warned to exercise extreme caution on rivers 
undergoing pulse flows, so swift is the water current they produce as 
the water rushes toward the ocean.
  Four months ago, Folsom Lake on the American River was almost empty. 
Yet on April 21, the Bureau of Reclamation more than tripled the water 
releases from Folsom and Nimbus Dams from 500 cubic feet per second to 
more than 1,500 cubic feet per second for 3 days. That is about 7,000 
acre-feet of water.
  On April 14, a 16-day pulse flow drained nearly 63,000 acre-feet of 
water from New Melones and Goodwin Dams on the Stanislaus. The irony is 
that if we hadn't built these dams, these rivers would be nearly dry in 
this drought and there wouldn't be any fish.
  We cannot demand that our people discriminate and save and stretch 
and ration every drop of water in their parched homes while at the same 
time this government treats our remaining water supply so recklessly, 
so irresponsibly, and so wastefully.
  This conduct utterly destroys the credibility of government demands 
for stringent conservation and sacrifice by our people, and it 
thoroughly undermines its moral authority to make these demands.
  Inflexible laws administered by ideologically driven officials have 
taken this wastage of water to ridiculous extremes, and it cries out 
for fundamental reform. The House twice has passed such a reform bill, 
most recently as H.R. 3964, but the Senate refuses to act on it or to 
pass its own alternative.
  Nevertheless, the administration has the authority to stop these 
releases through provisions in the Endangered Species Act but has 
failed to do so.
  Mr. Speaker, we use the word ``outrage'' too often on this floor, but 
in this case it is an understatement. If a homeowner is caught with a 
1-gallon puddle on his lawn on the wrong day, he can be fined. But the 
government thinks nothing of flushing 23 billion of gallons of 
desperately needed water for the comfort and convenience of the fish.
  How much longer will the people tolerate this kind of mismanagement 
from their government? How much longer will we allow these policies to 
threaten the health, safety, and prosperity of the human population 
throughout these drought-afflicted lands?
  California's chronic water shortages won't be addressed without 
additional storage. There are plenty of suitable sites, but current 
laws have delayed them indefinitely and made them cost-prohibitive.
  Until those laws are changed and new dam construction can begin, our 
State and Federal Government have a responsibility to manage our 
dwindling water supply as carefully as we ask our citizens to do.
  The wildly frivolous and extravagant water releases from our dams 
last month make a mockery of the extraordinary sacrifices that our 
citizens are making to stretch supplies in this crisis.
  Perhaps, at least, these releases will serve to educate the public on 
just how unreasonable these environmental laws are--and the 
policymakers responsible for them.

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