On the recordFebruary 29, 2012
The gentleman from California (Mr. Denham) just made a very important point. Silicon Valley gets their water from Hetch Hetchy. San Francisco gets their water from Hetch Hetchy. What's Hetch Hetchy? Hetch Hetchy was dammed up. It's in Yosemite, and they pipe their water. So if they care about the fish and the fishermen, tear down the dam, send their water out to the delta. But they don't want to do that. Now I have a lot of my respect for my friend from northern California (Mr. Thompson). We've worked together on many issues. But I have to remind the gentleman that the salmon fishermen were bailed out. They were given $230 million in payments. {time} 1550 I think there needs to be a GAO study on where this money went to because we don't know where this money went. There's never been any report to show where this money went--$230 million. But it was the Federal Government that told the fishermen not to fish. And I would hope that the gentleman would actually support this legislation because what we have here is the fish that are killing the salmon are the bass--the bass fish do that. So let's let the fishermen go fish. And here's the gruesome picture again. I know you don't like to see it. Let's go get the bass that are eating the smelt so that then the salmon don't have anything to eat. The bass is a nonnative species. So this bill allows fishermen to go back to work.…
