[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 23, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4584-H4588]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the 
subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am not at all sure it is going to be 
that controversial, but I was just looking outside the Capitol before I 
came in to make this presentation, and it is raining. It is a downpour. 
For those of us from California, it has been a long time since we have 
seen a downpour.
  The Golden State, the seventh largest economy in the world and home 
to over 35 million people, is in the throes of a historic drought. This 
is the fourth year, and it is a world of hurt in California.
  The economy is moving along. We are not complaining about the 
economy. Many parts of it are moving along. But for everyone in the 
State of California, whether you are in the far north up near Mount 
Shasta or way down here in the San Diego area, we are hurting.
  There is a lot of talk. Water restrictions are taking place in every 
city, whether you are on the coast, up in the north, or in the far 
south at Laguna Beach. Wherever you happen to be in the State of 
California, these restrictions are tightening up on the ability of 
communities to prosper, grow, and keep their lawns green, but more 
important in some communities, to even live there.
  In some parts of the Central Valley, down here in the Fresno area, 
there are communities that are out of water. Communities of 3,000, 
5,000, maybe even 10,000 people, have virtually no water at all.
  This is a problem today. As we look to the future, we are going to 
see the State's economy and population grow and the demand for water 
will ever increase, unless we do something. What we must do is develop 
a water plan for all of California.
  Unfortunately, what we do most of the time in California is fight 
over water. There is the famous saying from Mark Twain: ``Whiskey is 
for drinking. Water is for fighting over.''
  And so it has been ever since my great-great-grandfather came to 
California in the early days of the Gold Rush up here in the mother 
lode region. You couldn't mine without water. And fighting over that 
water was the order of the day, and it is today.
  So as this entire State and much of the Southwest region--Nevada, 
southern Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, and even the western parts of 
Texas--suffer through this historic drought, we have taken to fighting 
in California. And I want to spend a few moments this evening talking 
about what we must do immediately and then a long-term solution for the 
State of California.
  Immediate, we are going to have to seek help. The State of California 
is using some bond money from past bond acts and some bond money from 
the historic passage of Proposition 1 last November to immediately try 
to fix problems that exist in those communities without water. And so 
that money will begin to flow to those communities, wherever they 
happen to be.
  There are a couple up here in the Sacramento Valley and further down 
in the San Joaquin Valley. The deserts have always been without water, 
so this is not new to them, although it is more extreme.
  It is good that the bond act can provide immediate relief, but the 
rest of the short-term solutions will come from Washington. I want to 
congratulate and thank the administration for providing $110 million of 
money for a variety of projects. Some of those projects are to dig 
deeper wells for those communities without water, to find ways to 
improve the conservation immediately, and to set about other programs 
that are short-term in nature--all to the good. And that should 
continue.
  In the days ahead, we are going to take up the appropriations bill 
for water. In that appropriations bill, we should direct the 
administration to do what it is doing--and to continue doing it through 
this drought--and that is to focus all of those resources on the 
immediate drought that is occurring.
  Whether it is aid for ranchers and farmers or cities, it makes no 
difference. It is broad and it needs to be done, and it should line up 
with Proposition 1 of the last November ballot. That is both short-term 
and long-term. So the Federal Government supports those projects that 
would be funded under that $7 billion bond act that the citizens of 
California voted for in an overwhelming majority.
  But I would also like to talk about the long-term here. Because 
droughts will come and go, and we must be prepared not only in 
California, but across the West.
  For many years, the Department of Water Resources in California has 
looked at the problem and has made many, many suggestions; but until 
about 4 years ago, those suggestions were never put together in a 
comprehensive plan.
  I am familiar with this. I am a water warrior in California. I have 
represented this part of California for nearly 40 years, the great 
Central Valley of California. I will put up another map so you can get 
a better look at it.
  So the plans that were put together by the California Department of 
Water Resources deal with the Sacramento River, which flows south, and 
the San Joaquin River, which flows north from the Fresno area. This is 
way beyond Sacramento. Mount Shasta and Oregon, it is way up there.
  These are the two great rivers of California, together with the 
Colorado, which is way to the south. It flows into an area here which 
is called the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This is the

[[Page H4585]]

largest estuary of the Western Hemisphere, which is on the West Coast. 
From Alaska to Chile, there is no other estuary as important to fish 
and species of all kinds and to the environment and the economy of 
California.
  As this water flows down the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin 
River, it is collected here and pumped south into the San Joaquin 
Valley and over the Tehachapi Mountains way down here to southern 
California. That is the Great Southern water project and the Federal 
water project.
  But the result of that pumping is an extreme decline in the 
environment of the delta, Suisun Bay, and San Francisco Bay. Along with 
it, the salmon and other species have been largely decimated by those 
projects.
  So what are we to do? We will take the information that has been 
developed over these many years by the California Department of Water 
Resources and develop a comprehensive plan.
  One plan, which actually dates back some 60 years now, is one that 
would take the water around the delta and deliver it to the pumps down 
here at Tracy. That plan, first proposed in the forties and then in the 
fifties, was taken up by our current Governor, Governor Jerry Brown, in 
the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was called the Peripheral Canal--
peripheral, that is around the delta, delivering water to the pumps.
  I represented the delta at that time, and I said: Governor, what you 
have managed to create here is the great vampire ditch.
  The Peripheral Canal was big enough to take the water from the 
Sacramento, depriving the delta of the freshwater that it needed for 
its environment, and deliver it to the pumps.
  So we had another great water war. It actually went on the ballot, 
and the people of California decided not to build that canal. And so 
there it sat until the second iteration of our current Governor, and he 
decided it was time to address this problem.
  And so now his suggestion is, instead of a canal, bury it underground 
so nobody can see it. He said: Don't worry about the canal. Don't 
worry. You will never see it.
  I said: Because it is not going to get built?
  He said: No, no. Because it will be underground.
  Two massive tunnels, each 40 feet in diameter--about as tall as this 
Chamber, actually, if we consider this is probably 50 feet in here--big 
enough to take all of the water out of the Sacramento River half of the 
year, creating an existential threat to the delta.
  Something needs to be done, no doubt about it. So by cobbling 
together the plans that were developed by the Department of Water 
Resources and others, I put together what I called, a Water Plan for 
All California.
  By the way, this tunnel was first priced at $25 billion and did not 
create 1 gallon of new water--not 1 gallon of new water.

                              {time}  1945

  What it did was to create an existential threat to the delta, in that 
it was big enough to deprive the delta of the fresh water half of the 
year. I said: Governor, that doesn't work. Let's look at this in a 
serious way that can create water for California's future.
  This proposal was put together from plans that the State agencies had 
developed in the past. I commend this to anybody that really wants to 
look at what California's water future could be. Instead of a battle 
royal, which we are now commenced with as we fight over these tunnels, 
and $25 billion--oh, by the way, there is a new iteration of it, and 
they are throwing aside most of the habitat restoration and most of the 
environmental restoration and just going for the straight tunnels and 
just a little bit of mitigation.
  Let's do something different. Let's create water that California will 
need in its future. Let's build a system that will actually deliver 
more water for California, while protecting the environment, and that 
is what this plan is all about, a water plan for all California.
  There are the following elements in it: conservation; recycling; 
storage; fixing the delta, which actually has to be fixed; letting 
science run the process rather than politics; and make sure you protect 
the water rights that have been in existence for more than a decade and 
a half--excuse me--a century and a half.
  These are the principal elements, and we are going to go through them 
one at a time and explain why, if we were to spend, let's say, the full 
$17 billion, the current cost of the tunnels, and that is the first 
bid; that is not the final cost. Let's say we would spend that $17 
billion.
  Let's allocate some of it for conservation, agricultural 
conservation. Now, every agriculturalist--and I am one--in California 
will say, Yes, but we are already conserving water. Indeed, we are, and 
a lot of water conservation has taken place, but that much more can be 
done again.
  There are somewhere, by the estimates of the State, 3 to 4 million 
acre feet of new water, available simply through conservation, and that 
does not include the urban conservation.
  Now, understand, in today's drought, conservation is on everybody's 
mind, and in fact, it is mandated by law and executive order, but we 
can do maybe 3 million acre feet of new water. That is enough for over 
120,000 homes a year per million acre feet.
  Secondly, recycling--I often say, and I think this is more or less 
accurate, that the fifth largest river on the West Coast of the Western 
Hemisphere are the sanitation plants in Southern California.
  Whoa, what do you mean the fifth biggest river? Well, consider this: 
the Colorado River, over here, abutting Arizona and Nevada, water is 
taken from the Colorado River, 200 miles into the Los Angeles Basin.
  Water is taken from northern California, the Sacramento River, in a 
canal, pumps here at the delta, in a canal, 5,000 feet over the 
Tehachapi Mountains, into the Los Angeles Basin. That water is cleaned 
once. It is used in the Los Angeles Basin, cleaned again, in most 
cases, to a higher standard than the day it arrives in southern 
California; and nearly all of it is dumped into the ocean.
  What? You do that in California? Well, we do. Fortunately, Orange 
County, a bastion of conservatism, is far ahead of the rest of the 
State and probably the Nation in water recycling. We need to do more of 
it.
  For a few million, a couple of million dollars--excuse me, a couple 
of billion dollars, we could recycle at least a million acre feet of 
new water in southern California, water that is already there, water 
that is not being used.
  In northern California, the San Francisco Bay area, for my friends in 
San Francisco, you are taking what you tell the world is the cleanest 
water in America, right out of Yosemite National Park, piping it across 
the Central Valley into the San Francisco area, clean it--well, you 
really don't have to do much cleaning because it is already clean--use 
it once, then you pipe it a mile offshore and dump it in the ocean.
  Recycling is necessary in every part of California. Another million, 
perhaps, more acre feet of water could be available through recycling.
  So conservation, recycling, 3, 4 million acre feet--we are getting 
close to what California needs in the future.
  So where are you going to put the water? Even in the midst of a 
drought, we have had heavy rain flows--no place to put the water.
  My colleague from northern California, the Sacramento Valley, Mr. 
LaMalfa and I have introduced a bill to build an off-stream storage 
reservoir here on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, a reservoir 
that could hold 2 million acre feet of water--well, slightly less--and 
that water would be available when needed.
  It could flow down the Sacramento River, sweetening, pushing back the 
saltwater in the delta; or it could be used for agricultural purposes 
in the Sacramento Valley or down in the San Joaquin Valley.
  It also gives flexibilities to the great reservoirs of Shasta, the 
Oroville Reservoir on the Feather River, and the Folsom Reservoir here 
on the Sacramento River, giving flexibility to the water managers.
  When it is needed for salmon and other species, you could use the 
water out of Sites Reservoir. When it is needed for agriculture or for 
water quality in the delta, you could use it out of Sites Reservoir, 
keeping the cold water in Shasta, Oroville, or Folsom that is

[[Page H4586]]

necessary for the salmon that spawn in those rivers.
  Storage, off-stream storage, off-stream storage here, just east of 
Contra Costa, in Los Vaqueros Reservoir, off-stream storage further 
south down here in Los Banos at the San Luis Reservoir, and the biggest 
off-stream reservoir of all, the great aquifer of the Sacramento, San 
Joaquin Valley, the great Central Valley of California, arguably, the 
second or third largest aquifer anywhere in the world, one that is now 
seriously overdrafted, as Californians, agriculture, cities, and others 
thirst for the water in this drought.
  These storage reservoirs in northern California are just one part of 
the storage systems that are needed for the future. The other part 
actually exists here in southern California, out here along the coast, 
the West Basin, the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, the 
Santa Ana in Orange County, and as you move east into Riverside and San 
Bernardino.
  These are all historic aquifers that could be available to take that 
recycled water, put it back in the ground, pull it out, clean it, and 
recycle and recycle and eventually, these aquifers, many of which are 
contaminated, would be clean and available for the future.
  We could probably add all of the capacity of these aquifers in 
southern California and have greater storage capacity than the largest 
reservoir in the State of California, which is Shasta Reservoir, way up 
here in northern California.
  By using the aquifers as a storage facility in what we call 
conjunctive water management, when you have a lot of rain, you store 
it--store it off-stream, store it below ground in the aquifers. Then 
when you have your dry periods, as California historically does, you 
can take that water out, but you cannot take out as much as currently 
being taken from these aquifers in California.

  We are seeing the collapse of the aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley. 
We are seeing the land subsiding in some places, as much as a foot a 
year as the water is extracted, so we have to stop that, and so water 
management becomes extremely important in the process.
  I want to now turn to the delta, put this delta map back up and 
remind us, the Sacramento River coming down, the San Joaquin River 
coming north. From the north, the Sacramento, from the south, the San 
Joaquin, meeting here in the great delta of California--this delta is 
seriously at risk, as I said a moment ago.
  What to do about this? The Governor's plan, to take water around it, 
to deliver it to the pumps down here, I think, creates an existential 
threat. Don't build something that could destroy the largest estuary on 
the West Coast of the Western Hemisphere.
  Instead, build something that is the right size, recognizing that 
while the delta is imperiled, perhaps by earthquakes, perhaps by sea 
level rise, nonetheless, all the plants call for water to be pumped out 
of the delta, even if it is taken around the delta.
  The first thing to do, right now, is to armor, strengthen those key 
levees in the delta that are necessary for the transfer of water to the 
pumps, for the protection of the cities here on the eastern side, and 
to make sure that you are able to always be able to take that water 
through the delta. It is called the armored delta.
  Under the Governor's plan or my plan or any other plan, those levees 
are going to be used for at least the next two decades, if not for a 
much longer period of time. Improve the delta, levees, and that is a 
job for the Federal Government.
  I talked earlier about what could be done immediately by the Federal 
Government, and that is to secure some of these key delta channels by 
improving the levees on those channels. That is step one.
  Step two is what I call science. This area, the richest estuary on 
the West Coast of the Western Hemisphere, home and nursery to salmon, 
to other species, such as the delta smelt and many other species, 
requires very careful attention and very careful scientific study.
  We are talking over here, in a place called Rio Vista, about building 
a science center, bringing together all the State and Federal agencies 
so they can work in a collaborative science program. That is a great 
program called the Rivers Program. There are other science studies that 
are underway.
  You have to let science drive this process. You cannot allow politics 
to drive it; otherwise, you put at risk the communities in this area; 
you put at risk the environment; you put at risk the fish species, and 
you put at risk the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Western 
Hemisphere.
  Keep in mind that the Congress of the United States, twice in the 
last 4 years, has passed legislation that removes the environmental 
protections for this estuarine system and simply grabs 800,000 acre 
feet of water that was meant for the environment and sends it into the 
southern valley, into the southern valley here.
  It is a rip-off. It is part of what has taken place in California 
since the gold miners came in the 1850s, and that is, if you want 
water, you simply take it from somebody. In this case, you are taking 
it from the delta, from the environment, from the agriculture; and you 
are pushing aside the environmental protections. Don't do it. It is not 
necessary.
  There is another thing, in addition to fixing the levees, and I call 
it the ``Little Sip, Big Gulp.'' Here it is. This is a map of the delta 
of California. Sacramento is up here, the confluence of the American 
River and the Sacramento River. That is the State capital. This is the 
delta here.
  We were talking about it in the larger map. San Francisco Bay is over 
here, Suisun Bay and the rest. This is the heart of the delta. Stockton 
is down here. Tracy and the big massive pumps at Tracy, capable of 
taking well over 15,000 cubic feet per second, are down here in this 
area.
  The tunnels that the Governor wants to build would start here, travel 
through some of the richest agricultural land in the delta, or in the 
Nation, agricultural land that has been in production since the 1850s 
and 1860s, along the Sacramento River, displacing, oh, maybe 4 or 5 
miles of habitat and agriculture and communities along this area. The 
tunnel would come down into this--the tunnels would come down into this 
area.
  $17 billion--why would you do something that, first of all, is large 
enough to allow for the destruction of the delta? Why would you spend 
all that money, when a good portion of that project is already built? 
This is it.
  This is the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel, an ocean, a channel 
that begins at San Francisco Bay, comes up the Sacramento River, and 
then, in a channel that was built by the Army Corps of Engineers, all 
the way up to the Port of Sacramento here in West Sacramento, on the 
other side of the State capital.
  This is a deep water shipping channel. Ocean ships come into San 
Francisco Bay and come all the way up here. It is a pretty good 
economic activity. Agricultural products are shipped out.
  I was over that way this last weekend, and they have log decks. I 
guess these are logs from the various fires that have occurred in 
California, and those are going to be shipped off to China. I sometimes 
wonder why we don't use those logs for the things that we should be 
making in America, but that is another subject for another day.
  So what is an alternative? I call this the little sip solution, 
``Little Sip, Big Gulp solution.'' Take the water out of the Sacramento 
River here, 3,000--not 15,000--3,000 cubic feet per second. We know how 
to do that. Fish screens are already built to do that.

                              {time}  2000

  Let it flow down the Deep Water Channel to about here, just north of 
Rio Vista. Put in a single ship lock and a pump.
  Alternative one: put it in a small pipe through the delta down here 
to this area; and then, in an open channel along what is called Old 
River, take it down to the pumps at Tracy, 3,000 cubic feet per second.
  You could do that most every day of the year, and it could deliver 2 
million acre-feet of water to the pumps at Tracy in most years. In this 
drought year, it wouldn't be possible.
  A second alternative would be to take it down the Deep Water Channel, 
3,000 cubic feet, to the shipping lock and the pump, put it into a 
canal that

[[Page H4587]]

goes behind Rio Vista here, crosses Sherman Island at the confluence of 
the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers, and over to Contra Costa 
County to the pumps.
  This is a very interesting solution because this solution creates a 
fail-safe solution for about 7 million people that live in the San 
Francisco Bay area, because this particular route intersects six 
aqueducts: the Solano aqueduct here, this would intersect it down here 
in Contra Costa; East Bay Municipal Utility aqueduct; the Contra Costa 
County aqueduct; the Los Vaqueros aqueduct for the Los Vaqueros river; 
zone seven, down here in the Livermore area, over here in this area; 
and also the South Bay aqueduct, going all the way down to Silicon 
Valley.
  What has happened, if this solution were chosen, should the need ever 
arise for some reason, these critical water districts that supply the 
water to this entire Bay area could get access to the Sacramento River 
water. So if, for some reason, the delta was to become saline as a 
result of a collapse of a levee system or any other reason, we have a 
fail-safe solution for the entire Bay region, except Marin County, 
which has its own water system.
  Either of these is a system that would be right-sized. That is a 
Little Sip big enough to provide 2 million acre-feet of water, which is 
roughly 40, 45 percent of the amount of water needed south of the delta 
for southern California, for Los Angeles, and for the San Joaquin 
Valley.
  That is the Little Sip solution: a route through the delta, a 
pipeline from here to Old River, and then an open channel on the east 
side of Old River to the pumps, or a canal across Contra Costa and 
Solano County. Either of them would work. And it would be a fraction of 
the cost of the massive twin tunnels that would come this direction, 
destroying the agricultural communities here in Portland and Clarksburg 
and putting at risk the entire delta because of the enormous size.
  This is a 15,000-cubic-foot-per-second tunnel system. Now, granted, 
they are only going to build three of the intakes here on the 
Sacramento River. Okay. It is good to have only three. That gives you 
9,000, which is roughly two-thirds of the water going down the 
Sacramento River half of the year.
  So what does that mean for the delta? It means the delta is going to 
be salty and deprived of the freshwater that this estuary needs. And 
all they need to do is to put in one more intake, and then they can 
take all of the water half of the year.
  Don't do it. Never build something that could be so destructive of 
such a precious natural resource as the delta.
  So this is the Little Sip.
  Where does the rest of the water come? It is called the Big Gulp. 
Even in this drought year, there have been two very heavy rains that 
have sent a surge of water down the San Joaquin and down the 
Sacramento. The pumps were turned on--not to their full might, but the 
pumps were turned on, and the water was shipped to the south.
  Okay. It worked. Can it work in the future in normal years?
  There is sufficient water in the delta in a normal year to get 
another 2, 2.5 million acre-feet of water out of the delta, itself, and 
that is the Big Gulp. So you combine a small facility with a Big Gulp 
when the water is available in the delta.
  Now, keep in mind, this project and the twin tunnel project that the 
Governor is proposing both require storage south of the delta. Neither 
project will work. And, in fact, the California water system today will 
not work without storage south of the delta.
  That is why--to back up to a map of all California--we have to have 
storage offsite, at Sites Reservoir. There is talk of enlarging Shasta 
Reservoir, way up here in this area. There is talk of building a new 
reservoir here on the San Joaquin River at Hanford's flat. There is 
talk of enlarging--in fact, this one is almost certain to happen--
enlarging Los Vaqueros Reservoir. The San Luis Reservoir down here 
needs to be rebuilt because of earthquake safety, and it could be 
expanded.
  There is another reservoir site just south of it, Los Banos Grande. 
That is another large reservoir. And, of course, the aquifers in the 
entire Central Valley of California, and we have already talked about 
the aquifers in southern California.
  So you have to have storage south of the delta. If you have storage 
south of the delta, then the Governor's plan or my plan, the Little 
Sip, Big Gulp plan will work. Storage is absolutely essential in all of 
these configurations. Fail to do the storage, and nothing is going to 
work.
  Let me just review what we have been talking about here. We have been 
talking about a water plant for all California.
  Conservation, to be sure, the great agricultural areas--even over 
here in the Salinas Valley--conservation along this entire area, 
conservation in southern California, the great metropolitan areas, and 
in the Bay area. In doing so, the State's own estimate was 5 million. 
Let's just say you get 3 million acre-feet. Agricultural conservation, 
urban conservation, 3 million acre-feet of new water, water that is 
currently unavailable but there.
  Recycling, we talked about recycling here in southern California. A 
$2 to $3 billion investment will give you 1 million acre-feet of water, 
and you already have the storage systems in place, the underground 
aquifers of southern California. Similarly, recycling in the Bay area.
  Sacramento, right here, starting just a month ago, a new recycling 
program, a $2 billion recycling program in Sacramento to recycle 
water--some for that area, the rest to put clean water down the river 
rather than some of the water, which is a little shady.
  So recycling, another million acre-feet at least, maybe more, as you 
bring on the recycling in the Bay area.
  Now we have got 3 to 4 million acre-feet of water.
  Storage systems, it is estimated that the Sites Reservoir can add in 
this drought here, were it available, would have been 900,000 acre-feet 
of water in this drought year. Of course it is not built; it is not 
available. But on average, it should provide some 500,000--400,000 to 
600,000 acre-feet of water annually out of Sites Reservoir; plus, as I 
described earlier, the ability to reoperate the great reservoirs and, 
together, be able to perhaps get even more water as a result of Sites 
Reservoir. The other reservoirs can provide additional water also.

  So we ought to be able, through these processes, to get somewhere 
near 5 million acre-feet of new water for California. If we have 
conservation, if we have the storage and we are able to get through the 
current drought, it is a safe bet that 5 million acre-feet of annual 
water yield will carry California into the next 30 to 50 years and 
beyond that, depending on population growth and technologies.
  I had not mentioned the use of this water out here. Well, that is the 
Pacific Ocean. Desalinization and recycling use exactly the same 
technology. Recycling happens to be cheaper, in that it takes less 
energy to clean recycled water than to clean the ocean water because 
the ocean water has a lot of salts and other things in it, and it is 
just more expensive. But clearly, desalinization is also in our future.
  Down here, in the San Diego area, a new recycling plant is going 
online this year. They have been talking about one in Santa Barbara 
that actually was built but then mothballed because it rained again. 
But that one in Santa Barbara is likely to go back online as a result 
of the current drought and in anticipation of future droughts.
  So desalinization is also in California's future.
  Those are the basic elements: conservation; recycling; creation of 
new storage systems; fixing the delta, the levees; Little Sip, Big Gulp 
strategy; science-driven process.
  Keep in mind, you have got to be right on the science; otherwise, you 
are going to destroy this extraordinarily valuable habitat of the delta 
and other places.
  Finally, you had better be paying attention to the water rights and 
the laws of California, which, unfortunately, in the first iteration of 
the bill that passed Congress 4 years ago, just blew aside California 
water rights. So if you want to start a big, big water war, if you want 
to heighten and enflame a water war in California, push aside the water 
rights which, incidentally, is now taking place as a result of the 
drought.
  That is a Water Plan for All of California. It is here. It is 
available. My Web site has it. I recommend it to anybody that is 
interested in a solution for

[[Page H4588]]

California's long-term water problems; and also, I recommend to people 
that we have the Federal Government in the short term align its water 
policy programs from the EPA--the Environmental Protection Agency--the 
Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, the Army 
Corps of Engineers, that those water programs in the short term be 
aligned with the State of California's bond act so that we can promote, 
augment, and advance the projects that would be undertaken in the $7 
billion water bond that the California voters passed last November.
  My plea to those who think the tunnels are the solution is: stop, 
take another look. Take another look at the Little Sip, Big Gulp 
solution. This actually was something that was first proposed by the 
Natural Resources Defense Council. We were working with this about 5 
years ago. They came up with the Little Sip, Big Gulp name, and with 
some modification, it is now a proposal that would cost a fraction of 
what the twin, massive, 40-foot-in-diameter tunnels would cost.
  So, for California, there is a future. It is the Golden State. It is 
an economy unmatched by any other in the United States. It is an 
economy particularly--well, actually, the entire State's economy is 
stressed as a result of the drought. And if we take the kind of steps 
that I have been talking about here, we will be able to provide the 
water that California needs in the next drought and in the years to 
come as the population grows and as the economy grows.
  So that is the water plan for all California. There are many other 
pieces of the puzzle, one of which I am going to take just a second to 
talk about. And that is this week, as we take up the appropriations for 
water programs in the State of California--actually, water plans for 
the United States, not just the State of California--we ought to be 
mindful of a project called the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a 
program that has been in effect for half a century. It takes the 
royalties from the offshore oil and minerals onshore and allows much of 
that royalty to be spent on preserving the special places of America--
the wildlife refuges, very unique habitat areas--setting aside those 
areas, using that money to buy up the land and, in some cases, to buy 
up easements so that the land will forever remain available to future 
generations in a more natural state. That is the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund. Unfortunately, the authorization for it expires this 
year, and at the moment, there is no perceived movement by the Congress 
of the United States to reinstitute and reauthorize the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund.
  When I was deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior in the 
mid-nineties, we used this fund to set aside redwood forest off along 
the coast of California, to protect the Everglades of Florida, to set 
aside some of the land along the sand dunes on the Great Lakes. This is 
a project for all of America, one that is worthy of being reauthorized 
and properly funded.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, perhaps enough about California's drought. 
No, I will take that back.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. Speaker, we have got a problem in California, short term and long 
term, and it deserves the attention of the Congress of the United 
States because California is the seventh largest economy in the world 
and critically important to the future of this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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