[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 109 (Thursday, June 22, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2230-S2232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. Kelly, and Ms. Sinema):
  S. 2162. A bill to support water infrastructure in Reclamation 
States, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the 
STREAM Act, Support to Rehydrate the Environment, Agriculture and 
Municipalities Act, which I am introducing today alongside my 
cosponsors, Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema. This bill is 
intended to help Western States upgrade their water infrastructure in 
preparation for the severe droughts and weather whiplash that we have 
seen the past few years and that will worsen significantly with climate 
change.
  If we don't take action now, it is only going to get worse. Lawrence 
Berkeley National Laboratory scientists project that climate change 
will cause a 54-percent drop in the Sierras' snowpack within the next 
20 to 40 years and a 79-percent drop by the end of the century. This 
change alone could be devastating for California because we absolutely 
depend on this snowpack. The Sierra snowpack provides 30 percent of our 
water supply and is our biggest reservoir.
  For these reasons and others, we need an ``all of the above'' water 
strategy, including increased water supply; incentivizing projects that 
build in environmental benefits and drinking water for disadvantaged 
communities, and investing in separate environmental restoration 
efforts.
  The bill I am introducing today helps meet this challenge in four 
fundamental ways:
  No. 1, it authorizes significant water supply funding that, in 
combination with the bipartisan infrastructure law, would provide 
California with 1.04 million additional acre-feet of water per year on 
average, enough water for over 6 million people.
  No. 2, it provides additional financial incentives for water supply 
projects that include environmental benefits and drinking water for 
disadvantaged communities.
  No. 3, it reforms the congressional review process to more quickly 
approve water supply projects;
  No. 4, it significantly invests not only in water supply projects but 
also in environmental restoration to help imperiled species adapt to 
climate change.
  The recent drought in the West from 2020 to 2022 illustrates why this 
bill is so desperately needed.
  In 2021, the drought caused the California agriculture industry to 
shrink by an estimated 8,745 jobs and incur $1.2 billion in direct 
costs, according to a report prepared for the California Department of 
Food and Agriculture by researchers at the University of California at 
Merced. Reduced water deliveries resulted in 395,000 acres of cropland 
left dry and unplanted.
  Counting ``spillover effects'' in the broader economy, the U.C. 
Merced analysis found the total impacts were more than 14,600 lost 
jobs, both full time and part time, and $1.7 billion in gross revenue 
losses.
  In both 2021 and 2022, homes in significant parts of the State were 
at risk of running dry. In 2021, large parts of Marin and Sonoma 
Counties and the Mendocino coast came very close to losing all water 
supply. In 2022, much of Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Bernardino 
Counties were placed under emergency orders limiting them to once-a-
week landscape irrigation, with the possibility of a complete 
irrigation shutoff that was only avoided by the timely arrival of 
multiple atmospheric rivers last fall.
  In California, one in eight acres statewide has burned from wildfires 
in the last decade, with the past 2 years being the worst on record. 
The drought has been devastating to the aquatic ecosystem as well as 
our forests. As just one example, the endangered winter-run Chinook 
salmon depend on sufficient cold water released by Shasta Dam to rear 
their offspring in the Sacramento River.
  With limited water available in 2021, NOAA Fisheries models predict 
that approximately 75 percent of the winter run Chinook salmon's eggs 
died from elevated water temperatures. This is a species with three 1-
year age classes, and a prolonged drought could threaten the survival 
of the species.
  To increase drought resiliency in California and other Western 
States, the bill authorizes the following funding over the next 5 
years: $750 million for surface and groundwater storage projects and 
supporting conveyance, including $50 million for natural water 
retention and release projects; $300 million for water recycling 
projects; $150 million for desalination projects; $250 million for 
environmental restoration projects; and $100 million for drinking water 
for disadvantaged communities.
  This funding builds on the bipartisan infrastructure law's funding of 
$1.15 billion for storage projects, $550 million for water recycling 
projects, and $250 million for desalination projects.
  The STREAM Act, in combination with the bipartisan infrastructure 
law, would provide California with the Federal cost-share for 
approximately 1,042,000 acre-feet per year of additional water supply, 
or enough water for over 6 million people. This comes from the 
following:
  Enough funding for California to finally build three major off-stream 
storage projects providing 370,000 acre-feet of water on average each 
year: Sites Reservoir, the Los Vaqueros Expansion, and the BF Sisk 
raise. In addition, the storage funding could provide an additional 
55,000 acre-feet per year from some combination of other smaller 
surface and groundwater storage projects like the Sacramento Regional 
Groundwater Bank or Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir. All of the projects 
are non-Federal projects with a 25-percent Federal cost share, with the 
exception of the Federal BF Sisk Raise with a 50-percent Federal cost-
share.
  Enough funding for 532,000 additional acre-feet from water recycling 
projects, from the $300 million authorized in the bill plus $550 
million in the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, with a 25-percent 
Federal cost-share for projects.
  Enough funding for approximately 85,000 additional acre-feet from the 
$150 million authorized in the bill for desalination projects, plus 
$250 million in the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, with a 25 
percent Federal cost-share for projects.
  While virtually everyone supports water recycling projects, surface 
and groundwater storage projects are sometimes more controversial. I 
want to point out a 2022 report from the widely respected Public Policy 
Institute of California, PPIC, which relates to the benefits of 
additional surface and groundwater storage as California's climate is 
changing.
  Many climate forecasters emphasize that as climate change 
intensifies, California will get more of its precipitation in a few 
large to extraordinarily large storms fueled by atmospheric rivers, and 
more of the precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow. In 
between the bursts of atmospheric rivers there will be longer and more 
intense droughts. We have definitely seen a preview of this pattern 
this year.
  PPIC has studied these projections and estimated that there is 
substantial water in wet years that is not needed to maintain healthy 
Delta outflows but currently cannot be captured because California 
lacks the infrastructure to

[[Page S2231]]

store for future dry periods. PPIC suggests that given this reality, 
cost-effective storage projects in appropriate locations could help 
improve California's drought resiliency.
  PPIC also argues that these storage projects should be managed for 
environmental flow benefits as well as water supply benefits. This bill 
would help with that because Federal funding for Sites Reservoir would 
help provide cold water for salmon, and Federal funding for the 
expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir would provide needed water for 
wildlife refuges. Regarding cold water reserves for salmon in 
particular, these reserves will be critical to prevent salmon runs from 
being wiped out during the potential fourth, fifth, and maybe even 
sixth and seventh years of devastating droughts.
  The bill's funding authorizations apply not just to California but 
throughout the 17 Western States where the Bureau of Reclamation has a 
presence. Many of these States have recently benefited from the Bureau 
of Reclamation's storage, water recycling, and desalination programs 
and/or have projects currently seeking funding from these programs, 
including Arizona, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Nevada, and 
New Mexico. I believe the Federal funding assistance authorized by this 
bill will be particularly important for all seven Colorado River basin 
States as the States negotiate the next painful round of water supply 
cuts from the Colorado River between now and 2026 in order to meet the 
challenge of an increasingly dry Colorado River basin.
  In Arizona, the STREAM Act would significantly advance the Salt River 
Project's proposal to raise Bartlett Dam on the Verde River to 
counteract the loss of approximately one-third of the nearby Horseshoe 
Dam's capacity from accumulating sediment.
  The bill uses financial incentives to encourage storage and 
conveyance projects to include environmental benefits and other public 
benefits such as drinking water for disadvantaged communities. This is 
important to ensure that the environment and disadvantaged communities 
are included in our drought resilience strategies.
  If proposed storage projects solely provide irrigation and general 
municipal and industrial water supply benefits, the bill authorizes 
only low-interest loans to support these projects.
  In contrast, the bill authorizes grants for storage and conveyance 
projects that include environmental benefits, drinking water benefits 
for disadvantaged communities, or other public benefits either as part 
of the project design or as part of a watershed restoration plan 
adopted together with the project.
  This access to grants gives project sponsors a strong financial 
incentive to design environmental and disadvantaged community benefits 
into their projects. This approach builds on the experience of the 
Proposition 1 water bond California's voters passed by a 2-to-1 margin 
in 2014, which also incentivizes projects with environmental and other 
public benefits.

  If storage and conveyance projects take these steps, they can get 
Federal grants both directly for the public benefits and for an equal 
value investment in the water supply component of the project. Thus, 
the Federal Government will provide $50 million for the general water 
supply benefits of a project if the project also has $50 million in 
fish and wildlife or water quality benefits either directly from the 
project or from an associated watershed restoration plan.
  The bill not only increases funding for drought resiliency projects, 
it expedites their approvals and assists them more cost-effectively, 
stretching taxpayer dollars further.
  The traditional Bureau of Reclamation model for approving and funding 
new water supply projects has involved the following:
  No. 1, reclamation studies new projects in detail, which can take a 
decade or more for major projects.
  No. 2, once Reclamation's studies are complete, Congress authorizes 
projects individually, which can take another 3 to 5 years or longer in 
many cases.
  No. 3, the design and construction can take a decade or longer.
  One can quickly see that this model can end up taking decades to 
construct significant new water supply projects. This is especially the 
case given the limitations of Federal budgets and the increasing cost 
of major projects in recent years. Given the tremendous challenge posed 
by climate change to western water supply, we need a nimbler and more 
responsive model.
  Mike Connor, the Deputy Secretary of the Interior during the Obama 
Administration and currently Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil 
Works, testified in support of a new model during an October 8, 2015, 
hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 
Deputy Secretary Connor stated:

       The traditional Reclamation business model, in which 
     feasibility studies, consistent with the 1983 Principles and 
     Guidelines for Water and Related Resources Development, are 
     first authorized, funded, and submitted to Congress, and then 
     construction is authorized and funded, does not always 
     address the needs of project sponsors at the state and local 
     levels. Moreover, given budget limitations and the 
     availability of other available financing mechanisms, the 
     historic Federal role in financing water storage projects 
     through the Bureau of Reclamation must be revisited with a 
     greater emphasis on non-Federal financing.

  In response to the concerns articulated by then-Deputy Secretary 
Connor and others, the bill we are introducing today, building on the 
2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, makes two 
significant changes to the traditional Reclamation model. These changes 
expedite project approvals and make more cost-effective use of 
available Federal funding.
  First, the bill eliminates the need for Congress to authorize 
individual water recycling and desalination projects and non-Federal 
storage projects a Federal investment of less than $250 million. It can 
take 3 to 5 years or longer for projects to get legislatively approved. 
In fact, zero new water recycling projects were authorized from 2009 to 
2017 despite dozens of meritorious projects with approved feasibility 
studies.
  Federal storage projects, which are often more controversial, 
continue to require congressional authorization, as do non-Federal 
storage projects with a greater than $250 million Federal investment. 
The bill shortens the timeline for congressional approval of these 
projects through directing Reclamation to follow a process that the 
Army Corps of Engineers uses to notify Congress of completed 
feasibility studies each year to set up an orderly timeline to 
authorize projects.
  Second, the bill no longer requires 100 percent Federal funding 
upfront as was necessary under the traditional Reclamation model. 
Instead, the bill allows a maximum of 50 percent Federal funding for 
federally owned projects and a maximum of 25 percent Federal funding 
for non-Federal projects that are built by States, water districts, or 
Indian Tribes.
  Federal dollars can be stretched further by the partnerships with 
States and water districts that will be fostered under the bill. For 
example, the proposed expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir in California 
would be funded nearly 50 percent by the State of California, which has 
already conditionally awarded funding, in addition to potentially 20 to 
25 percent by the Federal Government and the remaining 25 to 30 percent 
by water users.
  Multipartner projects like the Los Vaqueros expansion frequently have 
multiple benefits. For example, much of the State and Federal funding 
for the Los Vaqueros expansion would go to augment the water supply of 
wildlife refuges that provide essential water for migratory birds on 
the Pacific flyway. These benefits would complement the project's water 
supply benefits for many Bay Area water districts.
  If proposed storage projects solely provide irrigation and general 
municipal and industrial water supply benefits, the bill authorizes 
only low-interest loans to support these projects.
  In contrast, the bill authorizes grants for storage and conveyance 
projects that include environmental benefits, drinking water benefits 
for disadvantaged communities, or other public benefits either as part 
of the project design or as part of a watershed restoration plan 
adopted together with the project.
  Let me give an example of how this works. If a project sponsor is 
seeking $100 million in Federal funding for a $400 million non-Federal 
storage project, the sponsor can get that $100 million funding as a 
grant if there is

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$100 million in public benefits from either the project itself or other 
projects as part of a watershed restoration plan approved with the 
project.
  The public benefits could be either drinking water for disadvantaged 
communities or fish and wildlife benefits. Some examples of fish and 
wildlife or water quality benefits from a watershed plan could include 
water leasing during a dry year, water sharing agreements, water 
banking, ongoing water conservation, and related activities if they 
provide fish and wildlife or water quality benefits; environmental 
restoration projects; and natural water retention and release projects.
  The longer and more severe droughts coming with climate change will 
adversely affect not just farms and cities but also the natural 
environment. The bill includes provisions to improve species' drought 
resiliency as well.
  The significant funding authorization of $250 million for 
environmental restoration can be used to benefit many different 
species, including fish and migratory birds. Some authorized uses of 
this funding include improved habitat for salmon, Delta smelt, and 
other fish species adversely affected by the Bureau of Reclamation's 
water projects; additional water for wildlife refuges hosting migratory 
birds along the Pacific flyway; improved stream gauges, monitoring and 
science to better understand how to restore species and to operate 
Reclamation water projects with reduced environmental impacts; ensuring 
that when Sacramento Valley rice growers sell their water and idle 
their crops, some water is left behind and applied to bare fields in 
late summer and early fall to create shallow flooded habitat during a 
critical shorebird migration period; and assistance in implementing 
water-related settlements with State agencies and State water quality 
laws.
  The bill would also authorize $50 million of the broader storage 
funding for natural water retention and release projects.
  These projects would help restore stream and river channels with 
natural materials like wetlands. Like many other projects prioritized 
by the bill, these projects could have multiple benefits, including 
increased groundwater recharge, improved flood protection, and 
increased floodplain habitat to benefit salmon and other species. I 
look forward to receiving comments on ways to prioritize multibenefit 
projects like natural water storage projects as we move forward with 
the bill.
  The bill also authorizes pay-for-performance environmental 
restoration approaches that award grants contingent on the success of 
the restoration effort. These approaches can expedite environmental 
restoration and build public/private partnerships to increase the 
number of acres restored.
  In addition, the bill makes clear that it must be implemented 
consistently with all Federal environmental laws, including the 
Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the 
Clean Water Act and all other environmental laws. All applicable state 
laws must also be followed.
  California is home to more than 40 million people, but our major 
statewide water infrastructure hasn't significantly changed in the past 
50 years, when we had only 16 million people.
  We must modernize the system or we risk becoming a desert state. 
Critically, this means putting in place infrastructure to allow our 
cities, our farmers, and our natural communities to withstand the 
severe droughts that we are projected to face as a result of climate 
change.
  I hope my western colleagues will join my cosponsors and me on this 
bill because drought is a serious threat for all of our States.
                                 ______