On the recordFebruary 29, 2012
I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 1837. California's water system is broken. For too long, the San Joaquin Valley, which many of us represent, has borne the brunt of the water challenges facing our State. We have a water system designed for 20 million people. We have 38 million people today living in California. By the year 2030, we could have 50 million people. My district was and is ground zero for the hydrological and regulatory drought that occurred in 2009 and 2010. I was in the food lines in which farmworkers, sadly, found themselves because there wasn't sufficient water to employ them. My constituents who rely on water for their livelihoods are looking to Congress to see that we are listening and that we care to work on real solutions that impact their futures. The politics of water are not new in California nor in the West. They've existed for decades. I would hope that at some point we could put the politics aside. This debate is too important. It has been put off for too long. For the farmers, the farmworkers, and the farm communities that I represent, I urge my colleagues to support this rule on a bipartisan basis.
