[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 13, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H6871-H6872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE VALUE OF WATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, it can't be overestimated the value and the 
need for water in our lives, in what we consume foodwise and what it 
provides in flood control, what it provides in hydroelectric power, 
just water at the tap, and even environmental water.
  As a Representative from California, we certainly go through a lot of 
gyrations and a lot of fights over water. Mark Twain is quoted as 
saying: ``Whisky is for drinking, and water is for fighting over.'' 
There is plenty of that in California.

                              {time}  1115

  What is going on?
  Back in the 1930s and the 1960s, two major projects were built to 
turn California into the blooming land that it is of so much bounty, so 
much great agriculture, so much opportunity, with the Federal water 
project started in the 1930s and the State water project conceived in 
the 1950s and much of it built in the 1960s.

[[Page H6872]]

  In my own district, we have two very large dams--Shasta Dam at 4\1/2\ 
million acre-feet and Lake Oroville at 3\1/2\ million acre-feet. Those 
have made so much possibility for people in California, but not just 
California. It has helped the whole country.
  I will tell you why. Because agriculture is a key element of the 
sustainability for this country. It is strategic for being able to feed 
itself, defend itself. You can't overestimate how important that is as 
well.
  What we currently have happening in California and in the Western 
States is the extreme environmental left is moving to remove more and 
more dams as we speak. Right now in the Klamath River, up in the north 
end of my district, there are four dams in the target sites for that. 
They make hydroelectric power.
  Now, as a sidebar here, what do we hear constantly in this Chamber? 
Almost every conversation is filtered through climate change. When you 
have sources of power that are zero CO2, such as 
hydroelectric power, as well as nuclear power, and very clean efficient 
power such as natural gas, which is being phased out or pushed out by 
the Biden administration as we can't explore or build pipelines for it, 
where are we going to get the power if you tear these dams out?
  Why would you take all of these inputs for producing electricity in 
this country, while at the same time, you are forcing more and more 
things to be powered by electricity, vehicles, big trucks?
  I see on the internet there is a major cargo carrier saying we need 
to electrify our aircrafts. How heavy will an airplane be when you load 
it up with batteries? Will it have any cargo capacity remaining? A big 
semi-rig for the highways is 80,000 pounds GVW. By the time they 
electrify it and add two 8,000-pound batteries to that, that is 16,000 
more pounds of cargo you will have to take off. That means five trucks 
will have to now do the job of four trucks. This is where we are going.
  Hydroelectric power is extremely important to fuel whatever levels of 
electricity we are going to be using. They want to ban gas stoves. They 
want to ban gas heaters. If we are going to have more and more of a 
reliability on the electric grid, which I hope we don't go through with 
these crazy policies, we are going to continue to need this power.
  Why are we tearing dams out? They want to tear them out in the State 
of Washington. We just visited the Colorado River, the Western Caucus, 
over the weekend. The Hoover Dam, what a mighty structure that is, with 
eight great big power plant turbines in there. Above that, Lake Powell; 
they are talking about maybe we don't really need Lake Powell anymore 
because we are in the middle of a drought situation. We are in a tough 
drought, but what if we didn't have those to begin with? We wouldn't 
have stored that water that has helped us sustain through many years of 
drought, actually.
  Back in my own district with a full Lake Shasta and a full Lake 
Oroville, under the regional conditions, that would get you through 5 
years' worth of drought. Still storing water for agriculture, for 
people at the tap, for hydroelectric power, and even recreation.
  What is the agenda? They want to force more and more electric 
vehicles and electric everything, but at the same time, they want to 
rip out the means to make the power. It doesn't make a lick of sense.
  I just see where Ford Motor Company lost about $4\1/2\ billion last 
year electrifying. They had the original influx of people buying those 
electric vehicles, but now that has fallen off because once the 
incentives go away or once you can get a sticker to drive it in the 
fast lanes in certain areas in California, the rest of the market 
probably isn't too interested in that.
  Their F-150 Lightning, they are pulling back production by at least 
half, maybe more, because people aren't buying these vehicles like they 
supposedly are projecting.
  Stored water is an incredibly good thing. Why it matters to the rest 
of the country as well is California has grown so many amazing crops 
over the years with the innovation and ability to farm the lands that 
we have had in the San Joaquin Valley. We would not have the food that 
the whole country eats since 90 percent to 99 percent of these crops 
are grown in California.

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