Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. I want to thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for giving me an opportunity to speak on this measure.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of this bill despite my reservations about the bill's prospects in the Senate. Over the years, I have supported a number of the provisions and goals within this legislation, but many of them will not offer much, if any, immediate relief unless we see Biblical proportions of rainfall taking place in California during the next 6 weeks.

As California is in the midst of the worst drought on record, reservoirs are at record lows, and we have 13 percent of our average snow pack, people in my district deserve an effort that deals with the current realities that can offer help.

No one has done more over 30 years working in Sacramento and in Washington than I have to provide water not only for our valley but for the entire State, and to ensure that we have a long-term supply. Unfortunately, too many folks on both sides of the aisle have kicked this can down the road.

As much as I think a number of reforms in this bill are long overdue and some of the policy decisions have increased, frankly, the damage of the current drought conditions, we all have to recognize that in California and in Western States today, we are in a triage situation.

There are many things that we must do in the long term to increase our water supply and fix our broken water system in California. But, immediately, we have to figure out how we can move water, the scarce resource where it is, if, in fact, we do get some additional rainfall.

This is not about political points. It is about mitigating the human impact of people--people--living in 17 water districts that in 30 to 60 days will no longer be able to provide drinking water for themselves. New ideas, new and immediate relief should be offered, not a rehashing of the old political battles.

Last week, we saw what can happen in California when the entire valley delegation, working together on a bipartisan basis with Senators FEINSTEIN and BOXER, asked the Bureau of Reclamation to honor the carryover water that had been provided by those farmers who saved it last year. In fact, we were able to maintain that water this year. It is a lifeline. The Bureau and the administration heard our united calls loud and clear, and they made a fair decision to allow farmers in the valley to keep water that otherwise would have been confiscated.

We need more of these kinds of efforts, which is why I offered an amendment yesterday to create a joint committee to bring us together to deal with these short and long-term challenges. This effort is important since right now we seem to be talking past one another and feuding in editorial pages across the State rather than finding the common ground that we need.

Although leadership chose not to bring my amendment up for a vote, I think we have to be open to getting down to brass tacks at some point in time, because it is the only way we are going to solve these problems--on a bipartisan basis. Solutions to our water problems are not and should not be partisan. Traditionally, they have been regional, and I can tell you where all the political fault lines lie. They are deep, and they are historic. It is time for cooler heads to prevail.

The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. COSTA. This is not about political points. It is about people who could lose their jobs in the drought. It is about the dairy producer who might soon have to consider selling the dairy their grandfather started. It is about farmworkers who might soon find themselves in food lines instead of helping produce some of the most productive crops in the world. It is about the children of migrant workers who might soon have to leave their school because their parents have to look for work elsewhere.

In the coming days, we will be introducing legislation. I hope we can engender some bipartisan support. At the end of the day, that is what it is going to take to solve the water problems in California.

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