[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 193 (Tuesday, December 13, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H9698-H9699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1100
         CONGRATULATING ORLAND HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' FOOTBALL TEAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate northern 
California's Orland High School. Their boys' football team just won the 
California State championship with a grueling 20-7 win, on a very muddy 
field at Orland Stadium, over Shafter High School.
  Indeed, the muddy field affects both teams equally, and Orland was 
able to dig it out with a great running effort--159 yards by the 
quarterback in order to pull the victory off. He scored all three 
touchdowns.
  It was, indeed, the first in many years of a State championship for 
Orland as they pulled this off in an amazing fashion after a lot of 
rain in northern California.
  Congratulations to Orland High School boys for a great effort, going 
15 and 0, and winning the CIF championship for all of California.


                       California's Water Supply

  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, this is a topic I have spent a lot of time 
on here on this floor talking about. It is where our food supply comes 
from in this Nation. With the shortsighted efforts we have had by our 
regulators at the Federal and State levels, food is shorter in this 
country than it ever has been in quite a few years, and for no good 
reason.
  As I point out on this chart here, my home State of California, many 
of our food products are grown in California that the U.S. relies upon. 
These products you see here, over 90 percent, some of them 100 percent, 
come from California.
  If they weren't grown in California, they would have to come from 
somewhere else. We would have to import them. We would have to do 
without. We would have to switch to some other type of food product 
that we didn't like as well, or just have less choice.
  Why is this happening? In part because the water supply for these 
farms has been around for decades and, indeed, the water systems in 
California, the Central Valley Project, which is Federal, the State 
water project, which is State level, were developed with harnessing the 
water that we have so plentiful in the north and using it throughout 
the State.
  Indeed, in drought periods, these systems were designed to hold us 
through drought for up to 5 years when the dam was full beforehand in 
order to do what people need to farm their crops and take care of the 
needs of the cities, manufacturing, et cetera.
  In California, of the 100 percent water pie, 50 percent goes for 
environmental needs. Fifty percent goes to keep fish colder and wetter, 
to let water run out to the Pacific, to keep the saltwater intrusion in 
the delta at bay, so to speak. Forty percent, traditionally, has gone 
to agriculture, and 10 percent is what has gone to urban and domestic 
use.
  That 40 percent that agriculture has received has had a big bite 
taken out of it. Hundreds of thousands of acres have been idled in 
California, just in my area, in the north. At least 250,000 acres of 
rice crops alone, as well as other water supply that goes toward 
almonds, walnuts, prunes, and many other crops, has been taken away.
  We want to blame the drought. Yes, we have had some level of drought. 
But in 2021, I would also remind you, we had a huge amount of rainfall 
in October and a vast snowpack in December 2021.
  This year, we are enjoying a good amount of rainfall already in 
November and December, which will help replenish our lakes.
  But what are the water managers, so to speak, in the Federal and 
State governments doing? Are they indeed keeping the water in the lakes 
so that we would have the ability to draw upon that water and continue 
farming crops in California?
  Again, this isn't just for California farmers, for the California 
economy. This is something all Americans rely upon for these food 
products that are more numerous than I can even list on this chart 
here.
  What is happening in my northern part of the State, the Klamath Basin 
that I also share on the Oregon side with my good colleague, Mr. Bentz?
  The last few years they have taken the water supply from the farmers 
up

[[Page H9699]]

there in that basin, in the Klamath Basin project--this is a project 
that was built over 100 years ago to make more water available solely 
for agriculture from the Klamath Lake. That is the original lake with 
an additional supply.
  Yet, the Bureau of Reclamation and environmental organizations and 
agencies believe that is their water to take and try to mitigate fish 
issues in the Klamath River. This kind of attitude has shifted all the 
way through the Klamath, on down to the Sacramento River.
  The Bureau of Reclamation needs to get its act together and be 
reminded, again and again, that the Klamath project was developed for 
agriculture, not to help mitigate fish issues that, truly, probably 
can't really be solved.

  On top of that, another thing the people of Klamath and the Siskiyou 
and northern California area are suffering is that they want to remove 
the dams that make hydroelectric power on the Klamath River by making a 
regulatory scheme that is almost impossible for them to renew the 
licenses.
  That is how government does it. They make it too costly, too 
impossible to continue to stay in business via the permit process.
  So, hydroelectric power is going to be less in California, which is 
already a tough thing on our power grid.
  What is the big thing against the people of Klamath Basin? I don't 
understand. We need food. We need electricity.

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