[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 11, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H156-H157]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WATER AND DROUGHT CONDITIONS IN CALIFORNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the 
devastating impacts of droughts and floods that have been exacerbated 
in part by climate change in California but also around the country and 
around the world.
  California is being battered with major storms bringing flooding and 
high winds across our State. Normally, we need the water but not quite 
at this level and at this measure.
  We need to be taking advantage of the heavy precipitation to shore up 
our water supplies, to fill our State's critical reservoirs, and 
recharge our aquifers that have been depleted not only over decades but 
the last 3 years as a result of extreme drought.
  The fact is, California gets most of its moisture, unlike parts of 
the country, from November to March. If we don't get it then, we don't 
get it at all.
  The acceleration of the cycle of droughts and floods caused by 
climate change and more demands in California's water system, more 
people, more needs, have made it more difficult for farmers to put food 
on America's dinner table. I know. I am a third-generation farmer.
  Now, the ongoing storms and floods threaten to damage our crops. 
California's San Joaquin Valley, which I represent a part of, grows 
nearly a quarter of the United States' food and has been bearing the 
brunt of it all.
  Since 2019, farmland in California has shrunk by 10 percent, 
resulting in over 750,000 acres of fallowed land. Nearly 12,000 
agriculture jobs were lost statewide, representing a 2.8 percent 
decline. A total of 1.3 million acres were left unplanted compared to 
2019, most of it within the San Joaquin Valley. Sadly, we see that 
example here. And the surface water deliveries in the valley were cut 
by nearly 43 percent; a complex State and Federal water system. Zero 
percent were to agricultural allocations. You can't grow food without 
water.
  Our farmers feed the world, and they can't do that without a reliable 
water supply. Forty-four percent of California's agriculture is 
exported.
  Last year, Congress enacted the bipartisan infrastructure law, the 
largest infrastructure investment since the Eisenhower administration. 
These projects must be accelerated to develop additional water storage 
and to expand access to water for farmers in the valley and throughout 
the State.

  In these efforts, we secured $1.15 billion for western agriculture 
water storage, an important first step; $25 million for the San Luis 
and Delta-Mendota Authority, which increases 130,000 acre-feet of 
additional water storage; $30 million for Sites Reservoir to pursue 
off-stream storage that will provide 1.5 million acre-feet of water; 
$82 million for the Los Vaqueros Reservoir that will expand another 
115,000 acre-feet of additional storage; and $15 million to construct 
the Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir, another 82,000 acre-feet of off-stream 
storage.
  If all of those would be in place today, that would be an additional 
2 million acre-feet of additional water supply for California during 
these flood times. Unfortunately, these projects are not built. We must 
get about that business.
  These investments, along with the ongoing Friant-Kern Canal 
construction already underway, show that we can and will improve our 
water system to sustain our future with climate change and other 
factors.
  For decades, sadly, we did not make these investments, and we need to 
do so to protect our communities and farmland against extreme weather 
events for our country and for the world.
  Water will rival energy in the next 10 years as to whether or not 
nation-states can live together amicably. It is critical.
  Finally, we took a large step by investing in this bipartisan 
infrastructure. But the flooding that we see here obviously is our 
current, ongoing problem. Our Federal agencies must work

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quickly, and we must use all of the water tools in our water toolbox to 
prevent future disasters like this from destroying our State and for 
other water basins, like the Colorado River and the Mississippi River. 
All of these are known to experience periodic flooding and periodic 
droughts. We must act now.

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