Political Quotes

“All of us can get pretty excited about water in California, and I see my colleagues from the San Joaquin Valley and beyond who are lined up here to protest what has happened over this last year. There is no doubt that in this last year the rainy season didn't work for anybody. We can find a solution if we base that solution on solid science, if we base it on the realtime monitoring of where the fish are. I know there is a monitoring provision in this bill. Also, this particular bill, as written, would push aside the environmental protections and simply allow the pumps to be turned on even with the monitoring. What we really need to do is to base the delta operation on the realtime monitoring of where the species are and then adjust the pumps accordingly. There is a solution. My colleague, Mr. McNerney, just talked in detail about the necessity of building additional infrastructure for water. We need Sites Reservoir in the northern part of the State. We need to rebuild the San Luis Reservoir, and the Los Banos Grandes needs to be built. We need to build the infrastructure, the recycling, and all of the other things. We do not need to take, as this bill does, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the biological opinions and push them out of the way and just allow the pumps to turn on. That is not a solution. That is a solution for the destruction of the largest estuary on the west coast of the Western Hemisphere.…”