Ken Calvert: “I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chair, water wars. I have been at this for a while, too, as my friend from northern…”

“I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chair, water wars. I have been at this for a while, too, as my friend from northern California has. People are suffering right now for no good reason. According to independent studies, under the existing biological opinions, over a million acre feet of water have been wasted because of non-pumping. What I mean by ``wasted'' is not one fish--not one smelt, not one salmon--would have been lost in the delta because of pumping; but because of overcautiousness on the part of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, we have let that water go. Tell that to the people who live in that shanty town. Tell that to the people who actually import produce from China to live on. I know that people like to paint us as the party that doesn't care about the Hispanic community. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been put out of work in the Central Valley. This is wrong. I congratulate Mr. Valadao for the hard work and the passion that he has put into this because he cares about the people he represents, and we should care about them, too. There is no good reason why we have let this happen. We have allowed this to happen for a number of reasons, most of which don't make any sense to most people who understand this stuff. We have a chance, I think, to fix this and to pass Mr. Valadao's legislation. Let's move on.”