George P. Kazen Federal Building and United States Courthouse

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

WRDA has always been a bipartisan piece of legislation. I have always voted for WRDA. I voted for this WRDA earlier in this Congress before a 90-page poison pill, California water provision, was dropped in at the very last minute.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I must rise today in opposition to this WRDA in its current form. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on it and force a vote on a clean WRDA so that we can have the many projects, the many benefits, the aid to the people of Flint, Michigan, that they so richly deserve and have waited far too long to receive.

We are here, Mr. Speaker, because, unfortunately, the House Republicans have a problem with regular order. It is something that they have talked a lot about. We have heard many promises about an open legislative process, and yet here they come again with the latest attempt to jam through dangerous California water provisions that were crafted behind closed doors, without public review or scrutiny, and they are being thrown on the House floor literally in the final hours of this Congress.

Let's not forget that this same last-minute, closed-door maneuver, the same water grab, nearly torpedoed last year's must-pass spending bill. By insisting on this parochial poison pill, majority leadership is apparently willing to risk tanking the WRDA bill no matter the damage to the families of Flint who have been waiting far too long, no matter the harm to fishing communities across the West, no matter how many jobs that would be created by WRDA might have to wait until the McCarthy rider is dealt with. This power play feels a lot like deja vu. Today, yet again, we are debating a

California water measure that hasn't gone through the committee of jurisdiction or received sign-off from the affected tribal interests, the fishing industry, or State and Federal water agencies. While this Congress was never given the opportunity to receive expert testimony on these provisions, we do know that the Obama administration just this week announced its strong opposition to the California water provisions that have been added to this bill. Senator Boxer, one of the primary authors of the WRDA bill before it was hijacked with this rider, has also called these provisions a last-minute poison pill, and she has vowed to do everything in her power to block this bill in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard significant opposition to this rider from other stakeholders who have warned this Congress that thousands of fishing industry jobs across the Pacific Coast will be threatened if this bill is enacted. But I do have to hand it to my colleagues across the aisle about one thing: they are relentless. This rider is simply the latest of many attempts to pick winners and losers during California's historic drought. If it is enacted, the winners in this effort will certainly be some of the most powerful, politically active corporate farmers in the world.

Consider one group of water stakeholders, one group of contractors in one specific region. Now, this bill may call itself a drought solution, and we may talk about many different parts of it, but tucked into the details is a congressionally directed 100 percent water allocation for one group of water contractors. That is one heck of a drought solution if you have got the political juice to get it into a bill like this.

Fishery protections, meanwhile, will be gutted in order to redistribute water supplies, primarily to large industrial farms in the Central Valley. Let's talk about the losers in this effort. It is going to be pretty much everyone else. The California water rider will weaken fisheries protections that support thousands of jobs in numerous industries, including commercial and recreational fishing, fish processing, restaurants, docks and harbors, boating, equipment supply, and tourism.

Pretty much everyone across the Pacific Coast who depends on healthy fisheries for their livelihoods will be hurt if this poison pill is enacted. Thousands of fishermen and their families are already hanging on by a
thread right now. Because of this drought, fishery managers have severely restricted the commercial fishing season off the West Coast because of high salmon mortality in California. Last year we had a 97 percent mortality rate for juvenile Sacramento River winter-run salmon.

The year before that it was a 95 percent mortality. These are tough times for fishermen around the West. They are struggling to pay their mortgages. We have heard about boats being scrapped because the owners can't pay mooring fees; homes are being repossessed; restaurants, hotels, and other retail and service businesses are struggling just to scrape by.

The human impact during this drought has been devastating on the many small-business owners and thousands of working people across California, Washington, and Oregon who depend on healthy fisheries.

This is the worst time to weaken the thin line of protections for these fragile salmon fisheries. Yet instead of increasing protections, as all the evidence tells us we need to do, this bill takes us in the opposite direction.
Now, the State of California has called for Federal drought legislation that does not favor one region or one sector of the State over another. This rider unquestionably fails that test.

Mr. Speaker, this Congress can do real things to solve California's water problems without pitting parts of the State against each other. I hope one day my House Republican colleagues will give up on the idea of jamming through dangerous, divisive measures that pit fishermen against farmers, that override the interests of the tribal community and numerous others who are suffering through California's historic drought.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, there is a reason that every environmental group that is engaged on this and the Obama administration are opposing this language. It is not harmless. It is not perfectly fine with the ESA. It is a congressional override of the scientific, peer-reviewed biological opinions that does grave harm to the ESA and sets a terrible precedent. But there are other problems with the bill, as well.

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