[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 184 (Thursday, December 17, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H9378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CALIFORNIA WATER LEGISLATION

  (Mr. COSTA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express the urgency to get 
California water legislation passed sooner rather than later. After 4 
consecutive dry years, drought conditions have become even more 
devastating. If you look at the NASA photos that have depicted, from 
outer space, the drought conditions, you see over 1 million acres that 
have laid fallow this year.
  Many of us are fearful that if we receive the El Nino rains and snows 
that are predicted in the next 4 months, California will still not have 
the ability to move that water through the delta, where it is 
desperately needed, to other parts of the State; and many of our farm 
communities will continue to end up with another year of a zero--zero--
water allocation, which would make the third year in a row. This would 
be devastating. It is both unacceptable, and it is avoidable.
  Mr. Speaker, we in California can all retreat to our political 
corners and point fingers to lay blame, but that will not deliver an 
additional drop of water that is desperately needed, nor will it 
address the real harm done to the very people whose lives have been 
impacted and whose jobs have been lost.
  The fact is we have to work together, and I will continue to work 
with multiple parties involved in the negotiations to try to bridge the 
gap and to get California water legislation passed. It is time to fix 
our broken water system, and it is long overdue.

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