Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chairman, 380 million gallons a day; that is a number that should have been quoted. When you hear about 380 million gallons a day of sewage being dumped in this estuary that they talk about, this environment they are trying to protect, when you think about that much sewage being dumped into the delta on a daily basis, you hear the same people talking about trying to protect it.

There are things going on in that delta. And they have been restricting our water for the last 20 years, and it has not saved that species. There are provisions in these bills that actually help. We attacked the invasive species that is attacking the delta smelt, the striped bass. We have offered that provision many times.

We are offering many solutions. Like the author mentioned earlier, we have had language in probably five different pieces of legislation going through the House over to the Senate. We have begged for an open and transparent process where we can debate this and have some commonsense ideas brought forward and voted and signed into law so that we can help both our communities.

If you truly care about the delta, stop polluting it. If you truly care about the people of California and what it costs to feed your families, if you truly care about farm workers, if you truly care about these small communities, you would care about water and doing this right and having an honest debate.

Now, I have been approached off camera a million times now to have another off-camera conversation about this, and we have said all along: No more conversation like that. Everything on the floor. This is an open, transparent process. Five pieces of legislation have this language in it. And we are going to continue to push until we can get some support so we can fix this problem.

So those little communities in my district that people claim to care about could actually turn on a faucet and fill a pot of water so they can make themselves some food to eat and some dinner, maybe bathe their children, because that is where we are today. We have houses that, when they turn on a faucet, they no longer have water.

And I get the whole junior water rights concern, but if they were truly concerned about the environment, they would give up some of their water. But you look at Hetch Hetchy, that has had 100 percent of their water and continues to deliver that water via pipeline all the way to San Francisco without one conversation about that water being able to help some of these rivers and some of these species, but they are not willing to give up any of their water. They are willing to take other people's water. It is the same thing we hear about on so many different issues; take someone else's product, or someone else's water and try to solve another problem with it.

And the problem has to be solved the right way: language that we have offered, that has been offered into these amendments, into these bills, and that we have pushed over to the Senate, and the conversation has to be had in an open, transparent process like our Senators have told us they wanted.

So we are here. We are ready for that conversation. We want an honest debate, and we want to talk about the way we actually fix these problems.

We are not going to try to accommodate communities dumping their sewage in the delta, but we want to help those species, and there is language in there to do that, even language in there to help capture some of the water. Use some of the infrastructure we have paid for as taxpayers and allow it to be used to its full capacity so we can continue to store water that we do have and not waste it.

This is an honest piece of language that could actually help solve California's problems, and I think we need to continue to have an honest debate.

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