Barbara Boxer: “Right. I would say this: I did hear, along with my colleague, Elizabeth Warren describe it. She described it a little…”

“Right. I would say this: I did hear, along with my colleague, Elizabeth Warren describe it. She described it a little bit like this. You take a beautiful bill like WRDA. For the most part, it is not perfect, but it is a pretty darn good bill. Then you put a pile of dirt on top of it, which I call the McCarthy rider, and then you stick a little Maraschino cherry on top, which is Flint, and a couple of other good things, and you say: OK, eat the dirt. That is another way of explaining it. My friend is right. What is the message if we don't fight this darn thing, perhaps defeat it, and get it stripped out. We have an amendment to strip it out if we could get to it. What we are essentially saying to all the people, the stakeholders in the water wars, is this: You know, what is important is to your clout. Give enough money to this person, agribusiness and maybe you can control him, or give enough money to this person and maybe you control her. The bottom line is we need to bring everybody to the table because my friend and I understand a couple of things. The water wars are not going to be solved unless everyone buys in. There are ways we can do this. We have done this work before. We can reach agreement, because if we don't, what happens? Lawsuits. Let me just be clear. There are going to be lawsuits and lawsuits and lawsuits because this is a clear violation of the Endangered Species Act. Some colleagues say: Oh, no, it isn't. It says in there it is not.…”