[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16025-16026]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         DROUGHT: HUMAN IMPACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the real 
human impact that the drought has had on families across California's 
San Joaquin Valley. This drought has lasted for 6 years.
  Tomorrow, the House will have an opportunity to vote on legislation 
that will help address the impacts of the drought and begin to repair a 
broken water system that we have in California today. I hope more than 
anything that we can get the legislation across the finish line, but it 
seems that some of my colleagues in the House and the Senate remain 
unconvinced that a solution is necessary. I tell you that a solution is 
necessary and we are working on borrowed time.
  I would like to take the opportunity to dispel that misconception. 
The picture next to me here is Mr. and Mrs. Cabrera from Madera, 
California. I represent these constituents. As you will notice, they 
look happy. The reason they look happy is because, when I had the 
pleasure of meeting with them that day, they found out that they had 
received a Federal resource grant to dig a new well in their backyard. 
Two years prior to that day, their well had gone completely dry.
  For my colleagues who do not represent the rural constituencies 
across this country or in California, that means for 2 years the 
Cabrera family could not turn their faucet on to get water to bathe or 
cook. Instead, they went outside to haul buckets of water into their 
house. A 2,500-gallon tank in their backyard was where they got the 
water from. Some families are even less fortunate and had to have water 
trucked into their neighborhoods.

[[Page 16026]]

  Also, pictured next to them is Juana Garcia. Juana lives in East 
Porterville. She was featured in a Fresno Bee story last year. Her 
family and 700 households in East Porterville have no water. This photo 
illustrates the delivery of nonpotable water to Ms. Garcia and her 
family. They walk to the local church several times a week so they can 
take a shower.
  The Cabrera and Garcia families represent the faces of thousands of 
families throughout the Valley who don't have water and don't have a 
long-term plan to get water. They have been impacted.
  Farmers, farm workers, and farm communities throughout the San 
Joaquin Valley have been impacted as well. Without water, hundreds and 
thousands of acres of productive ag land have gone fallow. That means 
they are not planted. Without planting, that means no jobs and no 
water. Unemployment, in many of these Valley farming communities, is in 
the double digits and at an all-time high.
  While a California drought relief bill will not resolve every single 
challenge we face in the Valley and in California's broken water 
system, it will provide some relief to help these suffering families.
  To my colleagues in California and elsewhere who think that the 
language in the WRDA bill is a poison pill, I say it is not. This is 
important to help solve the problems of the people in this Valley to 
ensure that more Valley families do not become the victims of polluted 
water and dry wells. This is not a poison pill. You should not look at 
it that way. It is wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House and the Senate to 
support this legislation and act swiftly, not only on the behalf of the 
people of the San Joaquin Valley but Flint, Michigan, and the others 
who will benefit in the very important WRDA bill that will be before us 
tomorrow.
  Time is of the essence. The drought-stricken community in California, 
especially in the San Joaquin Valley, and others who are impacted by 
very important and needed efforts that Senator Feinstein and others 
have put together as part of the WRDA bill, a bipartisan bill that 
Congressman McCarthy has worked on, should be passed tomorrow. Do the 
right thing before Christmas.

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