California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Thank you, Chairman Hastings. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak on behalf of my legislation.

Mr. Speaker, since taking office, ensuring the Central Valley has
reliable access to clean, high-quality water has been my number one
priority. My constituents are suffering through a drought, and they
have suffered more these last few years because of the laws that are in
place today.

We have got regulations that require that we basically send water
that should be going to communities, to homes, and to farms that create
jobs and grow food, and that water is being diverted out to the ocean
all in the name of a fish.

We have got so many different people living in this valley, from farm
workers, to farmers, and to business owners, all different types of
folks that represent this, and this has affected every single one of
them. It has affected everybody down to their just regular daily lives.

When you think about how simple it is for someone to just turn on the
faucet, be able to take water, put it in a cup, and put it in their
coffeepot in the morning, that is what we are talking about today.

We have had wells go dry. We have got communities in my district
today that are literally watching and in the process of looking to
drill four, five, sometimes six wells, just to get enough water into
the household. It is something that is very frustrating.

Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation is a very, very simple patch.
It is a short-term bill. As the chairman mentioned, the bill expires at
the end of September next year, or when the Governor decides the
drought declaration is over.

The bill is simple, and it is very specific that it does keep in
place all protections of the Endangered Species Act, the biological
opinions and others that have been put in place to protect the
environment, but this does give a little more flexibility to those
agencies to allow some pumping to help these poor communities.

We have got people in food lines today. We have got people who are
trying to feed their families and trying to earn an honest day's wage,
and this is actually hurting those people, the people that my friends
across the aisle always claim to want to help the most.

This is a simple, very small piece of legislation, the majority of
which was introduced by a Democrat in the Senate, with just a few
provisions that were changed. This isn't a surprise legislation that we
passed out of the House, a lot more complicated, a lot more
comprehensive. It covers the issue, and it creates a long-term
solution. Again, this is a short-term solution that helps provide some
security.

The bill helps all Californians, especially those south of the delta,
including those in southern California, because there is about 20
million Californians that rely on water from northern California.
Across the board, this is a piece of legislation that helps all people
in California be successful, feed their families, and take care of
their daily life. It is something that I feel is very reasonable.

Mr. Speaker, we work across the aisle as much as we can. We have
worked on this issue for 6 months now, but it is a complicated issue,
and we have a lot of outside interests that want to see this prevented,
but it is all, again, over a few bad laws that need to be changed.

All we are asking today is for a short-term fix, give us enough time
to give these people a little bit of breathing room, a little bit of
fresh water for their houses, and something that could really, truly
make a difference in their lives, and they are trying to stop it. It
truly is sad. We are here at the last possible minute.

The most important aspect to this bill and the reason why it is so
important that we pass it today is, if we don't get something done this
week, we have to wait for the next Congress. The next Congress starts
in January. From there, we have got to wait a few more weeks before a
bill gets introduced, passed, and goes through the process again, and
we start all over.

In that time, we will miss out on all the rain that could possibly--
we are in a drought, but we did have some rain last week. We could have
some more rain in the next 2 weeks, maybe a month, and that is an
opportunity that we will be wasting if we don't take care of this
legislation today and get this passed.

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