On the recordFebruary 5, 2014
As a farmer in the Central Valley, I grew up there--born and raised--on my own personal farm with my family. We have struggled with this water fight for years, even before I was born. This isn't a new issue. It is something that has been talked about for years. The problem is we have talked about it long enough. We have got to do something. We have got to make a difference for these people. When they talk about unemployment benefits, these people in my district would rather have a job. You turn on that water and they will be back to work. We have got farmers in my district that are literally laying people off today, putting more people on the unemployment line, because of environmental regulations. Yes, there is a drought going on. That has been going on. It has happened in the past. We have got at least 10 in our recorded history in California. When you look at what our forefathers have done, they created an infrastructure to allow us to prepare for those droughts, and what these regulations have done is allowed water to go out into the ocean and not be in place to prevent us from this disastrous situation we face today. That is what we are fighting over today. We want to make sure that that infrastructure is used and our taxpayer money is put in place so that when those projects are there, we have water to supply our farms and our communities.…
