[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 529-530]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             WATER SCARCITY

  (Mr. TONKO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, with all of the recent reporting on snow and 
rain events, it is hard to imagine that water scarcity is one of the 
greatest threats from climate change, but it is. And water scarcity 
already imposes tremendous costs and suffering on some 1.3 billion 
people around the world.
  A study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences combined agricultural and water models to gain a more 
realistic estimate of the impacts of climate change on food production. 
The results were not encouraging. Agriculture is our largest single use 
of water, primarily for irrigation; and it is irrigation water that the 
study's authors project will be reduced significantly, converting 
between 48 and 148 million acres from irrigated to rain-fed land.
  There are substitutes for many materials we use but not for water. We 
must protect water resources and use them with care. And part of that 
effort must

[[Page 530]]

be to address climate change by limiting the emissions that are 
threatening our futures and that of our children.
  Food supplies, human health, and economic and social progress all 
require adequate, reliable clean water supplies. We should act now 
before any more people are forced to endure water shortages.

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