Grace Napolitano: “My amendment is very simple. It would strike the NEPA, known as the National Environmental Policy Act, waiver and give…”

“My amendment is very simple. It would strike the NEPA, known as the National Environmental Policy Act, waiver and give the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, the authority to apply Reclamation's directives and standards for lease of power privilege projects, which is known as LOPP. The Bureau of Reclamation on its own accord has applied a categorical exclusion, known as CE, to small conduit hydropower projects. In fact, their CE went even further. It can be used to expedite a wide variety of low-impact hydropower projects built on Reclamation's water infrastructure. The main point of the legislation is to clarify that Reclamation has jurisdiction over the development of conduit projects on Reclamation facilities. As I have mentioned before, the sponsor's amendment only tweaks the language that should be removed from the bill entirely. The Tipton amendment tinkers around the edge of the problem while my amendment solves the problem by removing the waiver completely. As a compromise, my amendment also increases the megawatt limitation from 5 to 15 megawatts for small conduit hydro projects. This would allow for more power to be created at those existing facilities. Without the NEPA waiver, the agency can utilize its own categorical exclusion, which has no megawatt limitation, and therefore makes the cap on this legislation arbitrary. The NEPA waiver is unnecessary, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my amendment.…”