[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7927-7928]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      WATER WASTING BUREAUCRACIES

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, despite our first wet winter in California 
in years, misguided Federal agencies threaten to cut off the water 
supplies of millions of Californians.
  On one hand, the National Marine Fisheries Service demands that 
Shasta Dam releases be drastically cut, allegedly to protect winter run 
salmon later on in the season. On the other hand, the Fish and Wildlife 
Service plans to spend as much as $150 million in buying water to 
drastically increase Shasta releases to the delta, allegedly to protect 
delta smelt--dumping water in the middle of this year.
  That is right, Mr. Speaker. Federal agencies are simultaneously 
demanding that more water be released from reservoirs, not for human 
use, and that more water be kept in the reservoirs but not for human 
use. Neither demand is backed by science but, rather, by whim or by 
hunch. The only common theme of these contradictory Federal policies is 
that both plans give Californians the short end of the stick.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time this lunacy ends and Federal agencies start 
making decisions based on facts, not on the

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contradictory whims of unelected bureaucrats, and to protect water 
users, especially in the North State.

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