Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (House of Representatives - July 15, 2009)

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Mr. COSTA. I want to thank the subcommittee chair and those Members who have worked very hard on our behalf. This amendment, along with the next amendment offered by my colleague and friend, Congressman Cardoza, should be taken as two amendments because they are both part of an overall effort that many of us from the Valley delegation have been working on for over the last year on a bipartisan basis to deal with the third year of the drought in California, which, unfortunately, could last a fourth and a fifth year.

Water in California has traditionally not been a partisan issue. My colleagues, Congressmen RADANOVICH, NUNES, MCCARTHY, and CARDOZA and I have worked together on many of these issues. I hope that that tradition will continue.

The drought has been devastating. These two pictures reflect ground zero, which is in my district, in which we have farm communities that have 30 to 40 percent unemployment, food lines in Mendota that I have helped provide food for for those farmworkers, who are some of the hardest working people you will ever meet in your life.

The picture next to that shows fallow fields, over 300,000 acres this year, on which family farmers, in second and third generation, are in fear and frustration of losing their farms.

These two amendments, taken together, are important. Congressman Cardoza deserves a great deal of credit and effort for working very hard. These two amendments are not a silver bullet, but they are part of an overall effort to provide incremental additional water to our valley.

Amendment 93 provides $10 million for drought relief to the San Joaquin Valley to fund two important projects that we have identified on our list of things to do. The Two Gates project that we have strong support throughout the State on that, if implemented this November, we believe, could act as real relief to allow the Federal and State operating--Federal projects and the pumps to operate as they were intended to. The pumps have operated intermittently and sometimes have been shut down this year. Today, thank God, they are operating at near full capacity. But that will not continue on next year if a biological opinion is implemented that I think is flawed, as does my colleague.

The Two Gates project and the Delta-Mendota Canal Aqueduct Intertie funding will provide, in this amendment, money for the Secretary of the Interior, within the Central Valley Project, to be used to implement both a Two Gates and the Intertie project.

In addition to that, this amendment provides a resolution to the giant garter snake issue which has long been an impediment to water transfers. It gives the Bureau of Reclamation flexibility needed to facilitate water transfers throughout counties in the Central Valley Project area.

Lastly, I want to commend my colleague and thank Congressman Cardoza, my colleague, for his hard work on this issue. As a result of our efforts beginning in January working with the Westlands Water Agency, with the San Luis unit and others, we have provided, together, with the State of California and the Bureau of Reclamation, over 560,000 acre-feet of water to the west side that otherwise would not be there in these drought conditions, on top of, sadly, what has been a 10 percent allocation of water. Together, that has provided nearly 700,000 acre-feet to the very dry west side.

I want to thank all of those who have been a part of it: Leadership, STENY HOYER; the Secretary of the Interior, who visited at our request last month to the Valley; Secretary Salazar and his Deputy Secretary Hayes and Commissioner Connor, all of whom have been designated as a part of a drought task force team with Secretary Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture, because God forbid this drought could last a fourth or a fifth year, in which all of California would be rationing water.

Today, my district is ground zero, along with Congressman Cardoza's district, but next year it could be far worse. So we will continue to work with Chairman Obey and other members of the Appropriations Committee.

I want you to know that the San Luis-Delta Water Authority supports these amendments, along with the Friant Water Authority and most of the water agencies in California, because they understand that this amendment, along with the next amendment, is part of that incremental effort to bring water to a drought-stricken area in California that could be, next year, the rest of the State.

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