[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 6, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H831-H832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1045
              WHAT CALIFORNIA WATER MEANS TO WHOLE COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from

[[Page H832]]

California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, let me talk a little bit more about 
California water and what it means to the whole country.
  Now, we see here President Biden enjoying some ice cream there, as he 
is known to do. Mr. Speaker, ice cream comes from where? It comes from 
dairy products.
  So, we need cows in order to make the dairy products to make cream, 
milk, butter, and things like that, part of which you would use to 
produce ice cream, which almost everybody enjoys. Our dairies in this 
country need to be supported, and they need not be exported to some 
other place to make basic things like milk and cream.
  California is home to very happy cows, it has been said. Nonetheless, 
they are less happy having to move to Arizona and places like that due 
to our own State's horrific regulations.
  Still, there are many strong dairies in the upper Midwest, Northeast, 
and all over the country, really. So we need cows for ice cream and 
milk. It is pretty basic. We have to remind people of that sometimes.
  Mr. Speaker, what do cows need? They need feed. We need to grow the 
feed in our agricultural places, in our fields in every State and all 
around the country. Without feed and forage, we can't feed the cows, 
and we don't get ice cream.
  Where do we get the feed, Mr. Speaker? We have to have land, and we 
have to have a water supply like this lake here. This depicts San Luis 
Reservoir in central California, which right now is about 68 or 70 
percent full.
  It should be taking advantage of all this massive rainfall and 
snowpack that might be melting already in some areas, flowing downhill 
out through the delta. They have a couple of sets of pumps there that 
could be running and filling this lake and topping it off.
  It is not easy to top this reservoir off every single year. We were 
fortunate that we got it done last year, despite the water management 
that we have in government. There was so much water available that they 
were actually able to run the pumps long enough to fill the reservoir 
up to about its 2 million acre-feet capacity.
  We have a ways to go to fill this reservoir in order to have the 
strongest possible position for agriculture going into this year so we 
have dairy, grain, and many other ag products that California is famous 
for growing.
  Let's top off San Luis Reservoir. Let's get these pumps turned on to 
full blast while we have all this rain and runoff coming down the hill.
  Instead, we have millions of acre-feet of water escaping into the 
oceans--millions. We don't have a water shortage in California. We have 
a management intelligence shortage. That is the problem.
  I have Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta in my district, and they are 
both about 600 to 700 acre-feet short of being full, as we watch them 
run the spillways pretty strongly and let water out.
  Yes, Mr. Speaker, I know they have to keep a gap at the top for flood 
control, but they are not using modern thinking on doing that. They 
need to be able to bring that.
  Every day between now and April 1 is one less day of possible rain 
and possible inflow. They are looking at it as if we are going to 
overtop, perhaps, but if they don't get these lakes full by June 1 or 
so, then we are going to leave water on the table, so to speak, and 
leave agriculture out to dry.
  Mr. Speaker, what do we do in order to increase water supply in 
California?
  A couple of things are going on. Thankfully, this appropriations 
package coming up has $200 million of Federal money for Sites Reservoir 
in northern California, which would, once finally built, add 1.5 
million acre-feet to the State's water supply.
  We could have been filling it right now. With all the runoff, we 
would probably be 80 percent full if we had that facility there 
already. We could have been filling it out several times over the last 
few years.
  We lose the opportunity because they are hemming and hawing in 
Sacramento, and lawsuits keep coming, and, oh, we have to talk about it 
and study it more.
  When I took a tour of that 15 years ago, they said that if you can't 
build it here environmentally, then you can't build one anywhere.
  This is Shasta Dam near Redding in northern California's Shasta 
County. This is part of the Federal CVP project that was built many 
years ago. This holds 4.5 million acre-feet when full. Right now, it is 
down about 700,000 to 800,000 acre-feet from capacity.
  Yes, Mr. Speaker, I understand that you have to leave some room for 
flood capacity before the end of the season. Nonetheless, they are 
actually letting the water go down until the last day or so.
  Are they guaranteeing that this lake is going to be full with that 
last 700,000 acre-feet by the end of the rainy season? I am not sure.
  We also have an opportunity on top of that. Including building Sites 
Reservoir, we can also raise Shasta Dam about 18\1/2\ feet and add 
640,000 acre-feet or so of new space. If that space was there right 
now, even if it doesn't fill, would mean they are not having to dump 
the water right now because you would have that extra capacity, that 
gap, for flood control. We would not be dumping and wasting this water.
  On top of that, there are people in the Central Valley watching this 
water being dumped who are going to get only 15 percent of the 
requested water right of what they asked for. We need to build these.
  Please follow facebook.com/groups/CaliforniaWaterForFoodMovement if 
you want to follow up, Mr. Speaker, and learn in plain language on 
social media how this works. It is a really good source that anybody 
can understand.

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