On the recordMarch 13, 2014
The base bill actually creates all kinds of uncertainty, and allows a ski area owner to sell their water rights. If you are a local business owner in that area who depends on the ski resort business, let's say you own a restaurant or an equipment store or have a hotel, H.R. 3189 means that you have no idea, from one year to the next, whether the resort, which brings people to town, will still be operating if it has water. If the water rights are not tied to the resort in any way, which is what H.R. 3189 wants to ensure, there is no guarantee that the owners won't sell the water, leaving the Forest Service holding a ski resort that cannot operate without that water because the water rights have been previously sold. It is the Forest Service that is trying to create some minimal certainty that the resort would have current water rights to keep running, even if the current owners were to leave. It is H.R. 3189 that is trying to prevent that certainty. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
