David Valadao: “I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the Endangered Species Act was a well-intentioned effort to protect the…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the Endangered Species Act was a well-intentioned effort to protect the species we are at risk of losing. Unfortunately, the ESA has been hijacked by extreme environmentalists who have weaponized the law, especially in California. Central Valley families and farmers have seen the negative impacts of heavy-handed and misguided regulations that put fish ahead of our families and our farms. During dry years, the very limited amount of water available is consistently flushed out to the ocean to protect the delta smelt and other endangered species. While this precious resource was going out to the Pacific, thousands of acres of farmland were fallowed. This has devastating consequences for the people I represent and the livelihoods that depend on agriculture. This is something that is important for us to address and talk a little bit about, because when the water goes out to the ocean, obviously we are not taking any of that surface water, and it has an impact on our below-ground water and our aquifers. These past few years, we have had a huge number of wells fail. In agriculture, you drive around the countryside, and I know a lot of people at home probably see this, where you will see wells pulled out of the ground, the pipes stacked, and they clean them. Two days ago, I was driving around the valley, and there was a situation where there was a pile of sand around this well, and it was obvious the well had failed.…”