[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3524-3525]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              WATER CRISES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to once again rise to address 
the water crises that are facing not just California, but our Nation 
and throughout the world.
  Today, global communities and business organizations have joined 
together, and the White House is holding a water summit to raise 
awareness of the 650 million people around the world who don't have 
access to safe drinking water, urging leaders to focus on ways in which 
we can increase access to safe, sanitary water. This is appropriate, 
but it is long overdue.

[[Page 3525]]

  On the Web site, waterday.us, it states: ``Water stress is the impact 
a lack of water has on a particular sector or population. Water stress 
affects nutrition, public health, environmental services, housing and 
urban growth, and national security.''

                              {time}  1030

  And national security is directly related to our ability to grow food 
to ensure that American consumers are independent and have sufficient 
nutrition for their daily consumption.
  Water, therefore, is a resource issue of the future not only for our 
Nation, but throughout the world. These impacts of not having a 
reliable and safe water supply are all too familiar for those of us who 
live in the San Joaquin Valley in California and my colleagues who 
represent that area.
  So while I believe it is fitting and appropriate that we recognize 
that there is a nationwide and worldwide issue regarding our water 
resources and how we manage them--with the planet having 7 billion 
people last year and by the middle of this century another 2 billion, 
or 9 billion people--we need to look at both short-term and long-term 
comprehensive solutions to our water needs not just throughout the 
world, but here in the United States, specifically, in California.
  So I find it extremely disappointing that California's San Joaquin 
Valley is not at the forefront of this discussion after 4 years of 
devastating drought.
  While I empathize with those in Flint, Michigan, and other areas of 
the country, like those of us in the San Joaquin Valley, we have been 
facing water shortages for 4 years; it is getting much worse; and there 
is less national attention being focused on our plight.
  In the valley, instead of lead poisoning due to the failure of all 
levels of government, as we have seen in Flint, Michigan, we are 
dealing with waters that have high nitrate levels in drinking water. In 
addition to that, in many places, we don't have access to water at all.
  The solutions are clear. We need to increase Federal funding for 
infrastructure to build resiliency during drought periods and reduce 
the impacts of water quality using all the water tools in our water 
toolbox.
  We need to increase coordination between local, State, and Federal 
agencies to reduce the impacts of communities impaired by water quality 
or a lack of access to water.
  Finally, we need to increase our focus on ensuring that regulations, 
where they are in place, achieve their intended purpose while 
minimizing negative impacts that they have with contradictory results.
  For instance, due to the decisions made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 
Bureau of Reclamation is required to operate pumps in California's 
water system under what I believe are scientifically flawed provisions, 
biological opinions, which have lost, as a result, hundreds of 
thousands of acre-feet of water.
  This year, if the Federal agencies had operated within the 
flexibility provided even in those flawed biological opinions, San 
Joaquin Valley communities could have been provided an additional 2- to 
300,000 acre-feet of additional water. In addition to that, that would 
have benefited over 400,000 households.
  As a result of the drought and the inability to capture water that is 
flowing in the system, over 600,000 acres of prime productive 
agricultural land have gone unplanted, and we have seen families 
impacted. Families that literally do not have access to water have had 
to bottle in water.
  There is a very certain human toll--the impact--that is taking place 
to provide highly uncertain benefits for species. This is unacceptable, 
it is avoidable, and it is immoral.
  I urge the Federal agencies to take action to do experimental 
increases in pumping with increased detection and monitoring so we can 
find out if, in fact, delta smelt and salmon traveling through the 
delta are even being harmed by the exact pumping levels under 
discussion.
  So while I appreciate the comprehensive plan the administration is 
trying to implement to solve our Nation's water crisis, we need short-
term solutions now so that farmers, farm workers, and farming 
communities in the San Joaquin Valley do not go without a water supply 
under the Federal project for a third year in a row.
  Additionally, we must do everything possible to get Federal 
legislation passed and signed into law that would not only deal with 
our short-term needs, but to deal with our long-term needs as well. We 
passed the House bill last year.
  We need to get Senator Feinstein's bill passed so we can go to 
conference because, if the Federal agencies don't act--and they have 
not been doing the job that I would like to see them do--then Congress 
must act.

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