[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 44 (Wednesday, March 8, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H1159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EVENTUALLY THE RAIN WILL STOP

  (Mr. VALADAO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. VALADAO. Madam Speaker, this week, California is preparing for 
more atmospheric rivers that are bringing much-needed rain to our 
State.
  This is welcome news to the Central Valley farmers who have suffered 
through the last 3 years of exceptional drought.
  While I am grateful for this rain, and I know my fellow farmers are, 
as well, we have all seen this situation before. Eventually this rain 
will stop.
  That is why it is critical to capture and store as much of this rain 
as physically possible so we don't put ourselves in this type of 
situation with another man-made water shortage again.
  Extreme environmentalists and Sacramento bureaucrats have grossly 
mismanaged our water with complex and contradictory laws and 
regulations that control how much we are able to pump and what storage 
projects we are able to move forward with.
  While I am grateful for the Governor for his temporary relief that he 
pushed for a few weeks back, we cannot let this water go to waste. We 
must maximize what can be moved at all times through the delta and 
invest in water storage infrastructure and conveyance projects so we 
can capture and store this critical resource. Thousands of livelihoods 
and the future of agriculture production in California and countless 
Americans we feed depend on it.

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