Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chairman, the reason we are here today is we have heard talk for long enough. We have seen negotiation after negotiation, and the last one that we are asking to go back to happened in the mid-nineties. There was an agreement made that allowed water to go for the environment and for agriculture, and now we are not even getting that.

What we are asking for is for a little attention. Many of the viewers probably don't find this interesting. It is just a bunch of trees, but these trees are dead. They have been pulled out of the ground.

That probably doesn't mean a lot to the Chair or to a lot of other people in this room, but these are trees that grow crops. Those crops create jobs. The people that do those jobs are these people right here.

We hear so many people talk about unemployment insurance. These people want to work. They want to earn a paycheck. They want to go home at the end of the day with their money in their pocket and be able to buy food that is grown around them, natural, good, wholesome American food. These people do not like standing in line and do not like waiting for government handouts. They want to work and be productive members of today's society.

I know that a lot of people watching today will think, well, this is just a California problem, but this is the food grown in California: 99 percent of the almonds; 99 percent of the artichokes; 99 percent of the figs; 99 percent of the olives; 99 percent of the pistachios.

So when we talk about helping the people who need help and giving them the resources to feed their families, if we cut off water to California, it has a direct impact on the money that they do receive from the government. Because they aren't working because of the drought, it makes food more expensive. It limits what they can buy to feed their families.

Anybody that claims to be helpful to those who need our help the most and votes against this bill is literally saying, I want to raise the cost of food for everybody in the United States.

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chairman, what we are asking for here is a little understanding of the situation we have got.

This graph here shows how much water was in storage at the end of 2013. There was quite a bit of water, but the allocation was this much.

What this amendment does is continue to waste all the water here that should have been used for families at their homes, because people need clean water to drink. They also need water to grow food. Farmers don't farm for fun, they farm for food, because people like to eat. It is a funny little concept we have got going on here. We cannot continue to waste water.

I have enjoyed seeing the pictures of all the dams and everybody referring to the drought as the only issue that we have got. We have got a waste of water. We have got to stop wasting that water. That is what our goal is, and that is why I oppose this amendment.

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chairman, as someone who farms myself, I understand the value of water, and when the State Water Resources Control Board issues a cease and desist order in the gentleman's district for illegally diverting water--that was something when I spent some time up in Sacramento, I actually got on a boat and went around the delta and noticed so many pumps out there with no meters pumping water and pumping above their right, taking more water than they were supposed to to the level of 77.7 cubic feet per second illegally. So when we talk about stealing water, there is a lot going on there that needs to be talked about.

More importantly, yes, water is an important resource, and we should respect that and appreciate the quality, but to insert more bureaucracy in the middle to prevent us from taking what is rightfully ours and then have the audacity to dump sewage in this water and then claim you are trying to protect it and keep it clean, we are talking sewage from these communities, 380 million gallons per day being dumped in the delta, and then they come and tell us they are trying to protect and keep this water clean.

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chairman, we are coming to an end here and this bill is about to get voted on. What we have got going on here, and we have all figured it out from all the colorful presentations and all the pictures on both sides, we are in a drought. We know that. We can't make it rain; we also know that. But we also know that over the years our forefathers invested to make sure that we can alleviate the pain of what we are going through today. We did not use that the way we were supposed to.

This is the third time this graph is coming up, and I think it is important. All the different years that we have gone through a drought, we have had decent allocations. The green here is the allocation for 2013, of 20 percent. Yet we had all this water in storage. What happened to this water? When everybody talks about how their communities are running out of water, this water should have been going to those districts, should have been going to those homes.

Kids, parents, families, farmers, this water should have been going to you to grow crops, to feed families. This is important. That is the most important part about this. We had a lot of water. We lost it all. It was dumped out into the ocean in the name of a fish.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. VALADAO. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are going back and forth with a lot of numbers here, and there's something we need to understand. The allocation is a number that is taken from the nature of the--that the water year is supposed to be. That is the early allocation.

Mr. VALADAO. Reclaiming my time, the most important thing I have noticed over time with the studies and the reports is that the food prices do not affect the people in this room. We all know from all the news articles, at least half of the people in this room, money is no issue to you. For the average person sitting at home watching today, this has a direct impact on you at home. It has a direct impact on you at your grocery store, on your grocery bill.

This is an important piece of legislation, and I would love to see some other ideas that could actually deliver some water, not more ideas to take water from the valley and send it out to the ocean. We have seen that. We have done that. We have survived on that. We need to come up with some actual ideas and help protect water for our futures, for our communities in southern California like the author would like to see.

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