Reclamation Title Transfer and Non-Federal Infrastructure Incentivization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, the bill we are debating today is an attempt by my Republican colleagues to approve one part of President Trump's so- called infrastructure plan.

H.R. 3281 would enact a proposal from the Trump infrastructure plan that approves the de facto privatization of some of the public's most important water infrastructure, without safeguards to protect the American taxpayer or our natural heritage.

Now, you may remember, Mr. Speaker, that the Trump infrastructure plan that was transmitted to Congress in February focuses much of its attention on giving away the public's infrastructure to private interests.

For example, the Trump plan calls for privatizing Western electricity infrastructure, the Dulles International Airport, the Washington Aqueduct, the George Washington and Baltimore Washington Parkways, and much of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

This Trump yard sale of critical public infrastructure would raise consumer costs and would enrich private interests, all while providing no meaningful funding for much-needed public infrastructure development.

Now, when it comes to the management of our public infrastructure, it is clear that this administration and this Republican Congress would simply rather sell it off than fix it. So today, we have before us the proposal to dole out much of the public water infrastructure owned by the United States, with virtually no strings attached.

Mr. Speaker, this may be how Mr. Trump liquidates real estate during one of his infamous bankruptcies, but it is no way to manage public infrastructure.

Now, the Bureau of Reclamation owns some of the most important public water infrastructure in America, including hundreds of dams, canals, and other associated infrastructure. Reclamation's infrastructure helps deliver water to tens of millions of people, and it serves numerous stakeholders, including municipal and industrial water users, farmers, Tribes, fishermen, and environmental and recreational interests.

H.R. 3281 irresponsibly gives the Secretary of the Interior new authority to transfer title, which is another term for relinquishing ownership, to a broad range of reclamation water projects.

Now, this bill's proponents have claimed that it only expedites the relinquishment of small and easy projects that the Federal Government should no longer own. I wish that were the case.

Mr. Speaker, if that were actually the case, we would have a bipartisan bill, and I would be standing here in support of it, because I have supported title transfers for select, noncontroversial projects when it made sense for taxpayers and the public. In cases of canals and waterworks that don't affect water operations and diversions, and where there is no significant opposition from Tribes or downstream users, it does make sense, to me, for Congress to give the executive branch some leeway to dispose of these facilities, as long as appropriate safeguards are in place.

Unfortunately, the bill before us allows this administration to unilaterally relinquish ownership of a very broad range of public water projects without appropriate safeguards that should be there to make sure taxpayers and other stakeholders are protected.

In fact, this bill is written so broadly that it would allow the Secretary of the Interior to hand over multipurpose water projects that have no business being owned by one water user.

Now, the fact is, many of Reclamation's water projects need to be operated in a manner that balances difficult, conflicting interests. Giving up ownership and control of that project, handing it over to a single water user will, in some cases, result in significant harm to the many other interests who have a stake in the operation of Federal water projects.

I am also sorry to say that this bill is a bad deal for taxpayers. It allows the Secretary of the Interior to hand over publicly owned infrastructure and other Federal assets to private interests without appropriate taxpayer compensation.

For example, it fails to require that taxpayers be compensated for the loss of publicly owned lands and mineral interests. And whenever the Federal Government gives away Federal assets, we should ensure that taxpayers who paid for these assets are properly compensated. This bill utterly fails on that score.

I must also point out that H.R. 3281 unwisely removes longstanding and necessary congressional oversight for an overly broad range of projects. Under existing law, Congress has responsibility to oversee and approve the transfer of Federal water projects to ensure that transfers are in the public interest.

This bill eliminates Congress' current oversight and approval authority for a host of projects that deserve scrutiny before they are given away--not after, but before they are given away. Congress should think twice before it surrenders power and lets this administration irresponsibly give away the public's infrastructure.

Before closing, I should also note that this bill is rightfully opposed by numerous conservation organizations, including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, and many others.

Conservation-minded Americans oppose this bill because transferring ownership of Federal water projects to non-Federal operators will frequently mean less protection for the environment. That is because non-Federal water projects often don't have to be operated with the same environmental protections that apply to water projects operated, owned by Federal agencies.

For example, projects operated by Federal agencies must comply with certain provisions in section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. Those same requirements would no longer apply if a water project was operated by a non-Federal entity.

Mr. Speaker, it has been brought up that Vice President Al Gore proposed, in certain instances, that title transfer might make sense. That is correct.

But I have also acknowledged that I, myself, have proposed that, in appropriate circumstances, title transfers can make sense. They can be good for water users, for the taxpayers, and for other users as long as the right safeguards are in place.

What we are really talking about here, though, is a bill that fails to work in that narrowly tailored space that Al Gore and myself and others have been willing to work. This bill does not include those safeguards. This bill would not be limited to small, noncontroversial projects. It could apply to very large multiuse projects, and it could apply to those projects in ways that do not include safeguards to protect other stakeholders and other interests. That is why we disagree on this point.

Now, it has also been argued that because water districts have repaid the Federal Government through water rates, somehow, that effectively means they should have an entitlement to transfer of these facilities.

A couple points need to be emphasized here.

First, under reclamation law, water districts generally only pay a fraction of the total cost to construct reclamation water projects. The rest of these costs have been borne by taxpayers because the projects were deemed to have public benefits, such as fish and wildlife enhancement and recreation.

Given the billions spent by taxpayers on reclamation projects, it is appropriate for the public to maintain ownership of projects, especially in cases where title transfer could result in operational changes that jeopardize those public benefits for which the public has borne the cost.

Now, project construction costs that are borne by water districts are further reduced by various taxpayer subsidies that should be part of the equation, including federally subsidized, zero-interest financing, power subsidies, and write-offs of debt owed to taxpayers that are deemed beyond a water district's ``ability to pay'' under reclamation law.

And then, finally, it is important to note that even water districts who pay for this water over time, they still don't pay for any land that might be appurtenant to these facilities. That land, under this bill, would go along with the title transfer, and so would the mineral rights underneath that land. These would be essentially bonus subsidies, potentially, to these water districts without proper compensation to the U.S. taxpayer.

Mr. Speaker, for all these reasons, we need to insist on the safeguards that I and others, when we worked on this issue, have proposed and that are so lacking, unfortunately, in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, on my friend's point about privatization, let me just clarify that, in many cases, water districts, certainly many of those in California and many of those that serve agricultural interests in the Central Valley, are comprised and governed by private agribusiness owners and private landowners. They elect the board. They set the agenda.

Further, by the terms of this bill, it allows transfer to joint power entities which, under California law, at least--I would suspect, the laws of other States as well--can include nonpublic agency entities.

So I believe the concern about privatization is certainly valid in this case.

Now, the gentleman from California has mentioned the fact that one of the safeguards in legislation that I have proposed has been included in this bill. I am grateful for that. But the back end protection of the possibility of a joint resolution coming out of Congress within a certain period of time, while not insignificant, is pretty hard to actually achieve in a slow-moving Congress.

Far more important are the other safeguards that were in my legislation on the front end of the process, including safeguards that were intended to ensure that bigger multiuse, more controversial, more public benefit-oriented projects would not be subject to this type of authority by the executive branch.

Those front-end protections are important, and the most important of them, of course, is that for those type of projects, Congress would retain project-by-project approval authority, and not cede it to the executive branch.

In effect, my bill included a belt and two suspenders. At best, the bill from my friend from Colorado includes one suspender and nothing else. So we disagree on the adequacy of these safeguards.

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Colorado.

So let's talk about this Huffman safeguard that has been discussed most recently. It is a perfectly good piece of a safeguard framework, if it is accompanied by all of the other pieces that went with it and that are designed to go with it. And that included all of the front-end protections that were part of the legislation I had proposed, but which my Republican colleagues did not include in their bill, to make sure that only the right kind of projects--not the controversial ones--were subject to this new grant of authority to the executive branch. That is what this is all about.

Simply tacking on one safeguard, which, frankly, was the flimsiest of them all to begin with, doesn't come anywhere close to addressing the problem. As I have said, instead of a belt and suspenders, it is a single suspender--a perfectly good suspender, but try walking around with one suspender all day long and you will find it not very adequate.

This bill recklessly authorizes the de facto privatization of public infrastructure. It fails to protect interests of numerous stakeholders, including American taxpayers, Tribes, fishing groups, environmental and recreational interests, and, finally, it comes from the bankrupt Trump infrastructure plan that reflects this administration's failed privatization philosophy.

The public deserves a real infrastructure plan, not a shell game that simply gives away and privatizes existing public infrastructure.

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, this is the part where I give the usual stipulation that this is the final amendment to the bill which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

This amendment is simple. The underlying bill allows the Department of the Interior to dole out publicly owned infrastructure and other public assets to water districts.

My amendment simply says, the Department of the Interior can't give away public assets to a water district if that district has employed the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary of the Interior as a lobbyist in the previous 3 years.

Put another way, the Secretary and Deputy Secretary can't give away public infrastructure to those who recently signed their lobbying paychecks. It should go without saying that this basic ethics requirement is needed, particularly in this administration, where conflicts of interest and corruption run so rampant.

The Department of the Interior has been mired in scandals. The Interior Secretary's actions have triggered at least 10 government investigations. It was also recently revealed that the Secretary and/or his family, are currently in a business partnership to develop a former industrial site with the chairman of the energy company, Halliburton. Halliburton, of course, has a lot of business pending before the Department of the Interior. This is an outrageous conflict of interest, and demonstrates how hollow the President's pledge to drain the swamp has been.

Further, Mr. Speaker, Interior Deputy Secretary Bernhardt, the number two official at the agency, was most recently employed as a Federal lobbyist and had a long list of clients with business before the Department, including clients who stand to gain with the passage of this bill by taking ownership of public infrastructure. We must not allow such blatant conflicts to stand.

It is time for Congress to exercise some oversight over this administration and install some basic rules of accountability and ethics.

If my Republican colleagues are serious about exercising their oversight responsibilities, they will support my amendment. It simply makes sure that the public's assets cannot be given away to big business and narrow special interests if those same interests employed agency leadership in the past 3 years.

Mr. Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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