Jim Costa: “And the ranking member, since the early 1990s, the Federal and State lawmakers and regulators have made a number of…”

“And the ranking member, since the early 1990s, the Federal and State lawmakers and regulators have made a number of policy choices to implement the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act and the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. All of these have had good intentions. From the Trinity River, to the Shasta Reservoir, to the San Francisco Bay Delta, and up to the San Joaquin River, about 3.5 million acre-feet of Central Valley Project and California State Water Project have been as a result of those acts rededicated for environmental management purposes. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act alone, since its enactment, has resulted in over 17 million acre-feet of water being reprioritized for different needs and for different purposes. It is important to note that this doesn't mean that the water, in reprioritization, doesn't continue to serve multiple purposes within the system because it does; but it does mean that the use has been prioritized so that, in fact, it must meet environmental objectives over that of human needs, which are a distant second to the environmental uses of this water as a result of the passage of those previous acts.…”