Water Optimization for the West (WOW) Act Introduced to Provide Pathway to Water Abundance

Statement

California Congressman Tom McClintock (CA-04) and 11 members representing western states today introduced legislation designed to reform water policy in the west.

"Western water policy is a bureaucratic nightmare designed to delay and deny the storage, delivery and use of our abundant water by farmers and residents. Environmental groups have used the law to block construction on new reservoirs, resulting in man-made droughts that have devastated entire communities. This legislation provides a common-sense approach to allowing water to flow quickly and efficiently to the communities that need it, while maintaining environmental protections," McClintock said.

"Water is the lifeblood of the Central Valley; it helps us sustain California's farmlands and keep our position as a top agricultural producer worldwide," said co-author and Republican Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (CA-23). "To ensure that Californians continue to receive the water they contract and pay for while protecting the environment, my colleagues in Congress and I successfully enacted the WIIN Act in 2016 -- the first update to California water policy in over a decade. To build on this, the Water Optimization for the West (WOW) Act would extend critical provisions of the WIIN Act that help deliver water to the Central Valley. This new bill also includes the RAILWAY Act to repurpose unused funds from California's failed High-Speed Rail towards desperately-needed water storage infrastructure projects that will benefit Californians far more than a train to nowhere. I am grateful to Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee Ranking Member McClintock for introducing the WOW Act and for his continued leadership to help ensure the Central Valley's families and agricultural community's access to water remains protected."

"I want to commend Mr. McClintock for introducing the Water Optimization for the West Act," said Natural Resources Ranking Republican Rob Bishop (UT-01). "This bill signals House Republicans' continued dedication to provide water certainty for our constituents in the west by giving more local control over their water resources without being perpetually held up in bureaucratic red tape."

The legislation puts common-sense principles into policy and ensures that storage projects are funded, streamlined and operated efficiently. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on bullet trains to nowhere, the bill invests that money into water reliability. Instead of continuing the insanity of flushing half of our precious water out into the San Francisco Bay, this bill ensures Californian's can keep their water for residential, agricultural, and business use. When aquifer recharge and groundwater storage are the most affordable sources of water, this bill ensures duplicative regulations don't prevent such projects from moving forward.

The bill, H.R 5217, streamlines water districts' contact renewals, expedites water transfers and gives the Secretary of the Interior discretion to modify dam operations in the Central Valley Project (CVP) to provide reasonable water flows of suitable quality, quantity and timing to protect migrating fish.

The WOW Act ensures that we can prepare for the dry years in times of abundance and ensures that the greening of the West in the 20th century isn't followed by an aridification at the hands of shortsighted policy.

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