Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSAULNIER. I thank my colleague. I will try to be brief.

Mr. Speaker, this debate reminds me of the old expression by Mark Twain that, in California, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.

So for those of you who are listening, as somebody who has represented the delta in local and State government and now at the Federal level for 25 years, I think we are doing well in California.

In a recent op-ed by Charles Fishman, who is an expert on water resources of the United States, the title of it is ``How California is Winning the Drought.''

He writes in this article that it has been the driest 4-year period in California history and the hottest, too. Yet, by almost every measure, except perception, California is doing fine--not just fine-- California is doing fabulously. It has grown 27 percent more than the rest of the country, and the agricultural industry has also grown.

He goes on to write that more than half of the fruits and vegetables that are grown in the United States come from California farms and that last year, 2014, in the third growing season of the drought, both farm employment and farm revenue increased slightly.

I ask my colleagues to oppose the bill because it jeopardizes not just the delta, but California's economy.

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