Political Quotes

“I don't know if it is proper to ask you a question, but is this February 2? I am reminded of the movie ``Groundhog Day.'' We continue to repeat what happened yesterday and the year before. This is a repetition of a bill that came to the floor 2 years ago. It was a bill that had a lot of different pieces to it but was very, very simple in what it accomplished, or attempted to accomplish, and that was to take water from someone--the environment, fish, and the delta, farmers, communities, Contra Costa County, the East Bay of San Francisco--and deliver it to someone else. That would be the San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project. That was 2 years ago. It must be February 2. It must be Groundhog Day because we are doing it all over again. Whatever little whistles and bells and bows you want to put on it, this is essentially a theft of water from someone to give to somebody else. Plain and simple, that is what it is about. In this case, the water is going to be stolen--and I use that word because that is accurate--from the delta, from the environment, San Francisco Bay, from the salmon, which is a huge industry in California, all the way up the coast to Oregon, to be given to the largest single- water district in the Nation. A district that, by its contract with the Federal Government, is specifically set to take shortages in their water when there is a drought. If this bill becomes law, that won't be the case. They will get the water and someone else won't.…”