Richard Pombo: “as chairman of the Resources Committee, I have fought to add more domestic water supplies to blunt the effects of…”

“as chairman of the Resources Committee, I have fought to add more domestic water supplies to blunt the effects of drought, population growth, and environmental mandates. We have made significant progress in this effort, but more change can be made to existing programs to help create more water supplies. One needed reform is to the State Water Research Institute's program which is funded through the USGS in this bill. This program needs to be reauthorized and changed to reflect current-day water supplies. In fact, the Resources Committee held a hearing just last week on Mr. Doolittle's bill to reauthorize the program by adding water supply creation as a focus and to create better transparency and results-oriented research. I have concerns with the appropriation in this bill to a program in desperate need of change, but I want to work cooperatively with the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina to resolve this concern. Absent such authorization, it will be difficult for Congress to continue its support for this program in the future.”