David Valadao: “Thank you for allowing me this time to talk about the importance of the three amendments I submitted to this bill that…”

“Thank you for allowing me this time to talk about the importance of the three amendments I submitted to this bill that, unfortunately, we won't be voting on today. The severe drought throughout the American West has been negatively impacting my constituents and local community for years. In the Central Valley, our farmers have had to turn to pumping groundwater to protect their high-value crops. Towns have been forced to pump more and more groundwater to meet their communities' needs. As a result, these communities have experienced land subsidence at the expense of critical water infrastructure. In the worst cases, farmers are forced to fallow their fields and dry out valuable orchards due to access to little or no water. My constituents are farmers who feed the world, and with record-high food prices, the inability for our domestic farmers to grow food is going to impact the entire country. The situation is dire and only getting worse. We can't produce more water, but we can work with the water we already have and apply commonsense solutions to make this water available to our agricultural communities. My first amendment would have addressed water storage capacity issues by extending the storage provision of subtitle J of the WIIN Act. It would have also created a program to assist in funding the repairs to damaged canal facilities.…”