Water Bill Now Available for Senate Action

Press Release

WASHINGTON -- Congressmen David Valadao (CA-21), Devin Nunes (CA-22), and Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) issued the following statement after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell invoked a procedure in Rule XIV tp potentially speed consideration of H.R. 3964, the Sacramento--San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act:

"We'd like to thank Leader McConnell and the Senate GOP leadership for making it easier to move this bill forward. In light of the urgency of California's water crisis and the Senate's utter inaction, this bill deserves to be debated and voted on in the Senate. Its opponents should be forced to go on the record."

While it doesn't yet guarantee the Democrat leadership in the Senate will act immediately on the bill, the procedure prevents the bill from being held up in a Senate committee. If a motion to proceed is approved by three-fifths of the Senate, the bill then moves to the Senate floor for a vote. Two bills from the last Congress that would have boosted California water supplies -- one passed by the House of Representatives and a Senate bill introduced by Senators Hatch and Barrasso that incorporated the House bill -- were quashed when Senate Democrats refused to act on them.

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