[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 109 (Thursday, June 22, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2234-S2235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Mr. Padilla):
  S. 2202. A bill to amend the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 
2009 to authorize the modification of transferred works to increase 
public benefits and other project benefits as part of extraordinary 
operation and maintenance work, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the 
Restore Aging Infrastructure Now RAIN Act, which I introduced today. 
Senator Alex Padilla is cosponsoring the legislation.
  This bill has three purposes: No. 1, upgrade aging canals and other 
facilities owned by the Bureau of Reclamation to provide environmental 
and other benefits; No. 2, for the first time provide grant funding 
rather than loans for Reclamation facility upgrades that provide 
drinking water for disadvantaged communities; and No. 3, incentivize 
agricultural and municipal irrigation districts to participate in these 
projects by giving them a 15 percent discount on what they owe for 
repairing the aging facilities that serve them.
  Let me explain these three bill purposes in more detail. First, 
Congress has appropriated $3.2 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation to 
repair its aging canals, dams and other facilities. If the Federal 
taxpayers are spending this much money to retool Reclamation 
infrastructure for the needs of the 21st century, the Department of the 
Interior should have the authority to modify the Reclamation facilities 
to achieve increased environmental benefits, drinking water for 
disadvantaged communities, and other project benefits.
  This bill applies to Reclamation ``transferred works'' facilities, 
which are operated and maintained by agricultural or municipal water 
districts. The bill authorizes Reclamation to modify these transferred 
works facilities when the Agency is repairing them, as long as the 
modifications add no more than 25 percent of the cost of the repair 
projects, or $25 million for repair projects costing less than $100 
million.
  In California, this could be particularly helpful for projects to 
restore major Central Valley Project canals that have lost up to 60 
percent of their conveyance capacity due to subsidence. These projects 
are important to allow farmers to capture runoff from our increasingly 
concentrated winter storms and move the water to overdrafted areas 
where it is needed to recharge the local aquifers.

[[Page S2235]]

  As I mentioned, the bill applies to those Reclamation facilities 
known as ``transferred works,'' which are operated and maintained by 
agricultural or irrigation water districts. In order to modify these 
projects when they are being repaired, the Secretary must obtain the 
consent of the transferred works operating entity and any individual 
water district that would receive less water under the modified 
project.
  Many Bureau of Reclamation facilities were built for the sole purpose 
of assisting agricultural water supply. This irrigation focus is 
critically important in the arid West. However, as climate change 
stretches western water supplies, Reclamation facilities will need to 
serve multiple purposes as efficiently as possible.
  There are many rural communities in the areas served by Reclamation 
facilities that have dwindling water supplies. In California, many of 
these communities are home to migrant farmworkers who plant and harvest 
the crops that Reclamation water deliveries support.
  All too often, these communities' water supplies have become 
unreliable as groundwater tables drop, or drought reduces surface water 
supplies for lengthy periods. Many of these communities lack the 
ratepayer base and income levels to provide clean drinking water to 
meet their residents' basic daily needs.
  In order to meet this challenge, the bill authorizes Reclamation to 
offer grants rather than loans when it modifies existing Reclamation 
facilities to provide drinking water for disadvantaged communities. 
Eligible communities are defined using existing precedent that their 
median family income must not exceed 80 percent of the statewide median 
family income.
  In California, this could be particular helpful for the major canal 
repair projects which are restoring the original capacity of the 
Friant-Kern Canal, the California Aqueduct, and the Delta-Mendota 
Canal, all of which have been damaged by subsidence. Under the bill, 
Reclamation can now modify these upgraded canals to provide turnouts to 
recharge the aquifers of disadvantaged communities along the canals.
  As a result, when we have wet years like this past winter, 
Reclamation could send some of the flood flows to help these 
communities boost their local water supplies.
  These project modifications can be an efficient way to assist these 
disadvantaged communities; the canals already exist, works crews will 
already be mobilized to repair them, and in many cases, the canals run 
very near the communities that would benefit.
  To make the bill work, agricultural and municipal water districts 
must participate in these modifications to Reclamation facility repair 
projects.
  In many cases, the water providers will face disincentives to 
participate in these projects. Some providers may see their benefits 
reduced. All providers will have to accept significant delay in 
obtaining the benefits of the restoration of these projects. It will 
take significant time to modify the projects in a manner that the 
providers can accept and then to conduct environmental compliance on 
the proposed modification. The providers will also have to accept 
modified project operations that give increased priority to public 
benefits.
  To offset these disincentives for water providers to participate in 
modifications to projects which increase just public benefits, the bill 
reduces the amount the providers have to pay for the underlying repair 
projects by 15 percent. The result is that each project beneficiary 
will pay 85 percent of the costs for the modified project that the 
beneficiary would otherwise have been allocated.
  This provision sets up a financial incentive for water providers to 
support modified projects that solely increase environmental and other 
public benefits without increasing water diversions or other water 
supply benefits. Without this financial incentive, water providers 
might be expected to frequently oppose such modification of the 
projects that they rely on for water deliveries. In the case of canal 
restoration projects, the agricultural water districts will receive 
less water than they would have under the original canals at full 
capacity if an increased amount of the water is diverted for dedicated 
to disadvantaged communities or wildlife refuges. The financial 
incentive is important in this context to avoid generating agricultural 
water district opposition to project modifications to benefit 
disadvantaged communities and wildlife refuges.
  This approach is consistent with Reclamation programs like the Title 
XVI and large-scale water recycling programs. These programs provide 25 
percent Federal grant funding for projects that increase municipal 
water supplies, even where the benefiting communities are not 
disadvantaged. These grants are justified because the recycled water 
programs provide both water supply and broader public benefits by 
reducing pressure to divert water from often overallocated streams and 
rivers. With this bill, too, the modified projects merit some Federal 
grant funding because they provide a range of public benefits beyond 
just regular water supply, including potentially environmental benefits 
or drinking water for disadvantaged communities.
  Given the inevitability of increasingly severe and lengthy droughts 
as the West's climate changes, it will be essential to provide 
incentives to collaborate on multibenefit projects that bring 
agricultural, environmental, and urban interests together to address 
the very serious challenge of maintaining sufficiently reliable water 
supply for all, including disadvantaged communities. This proposed 
legislation seeks to increase incentives for such needed collaboration.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this bill.
                                 ______