Tom McClintock

Your policies are not working. But they are devastating the human population of California.

Just this morning I talked to a representative of Central Valley farmers.

Thank you for your candor.

Wouldn't that $14 billion be better spent building additional capacity?

In pursuit of this goal, this movement has obstructed the construction of new dams.

Water is very good at flowing downhill on its own. It doesn't need our help.

You would say that relationship is pretty extensive now throughout the State government?

Droughts are nature's fault; water shortages are our fault.

It is very difficult to explain to somebody that doesn't understand Ag, doesn't understand water, and doesn't appreciate it.

Isn't this just a shell game?

Are we ever going to solve our water shortage without fundamentally reforming the Endangered Species Act?

Well, that is great, if you don't mind $1,000-a-month household water bills.

The costs are prohibitive on these projects now. And I look at the Hoover Dam and all the other magnificent dams during the Roosevelt years.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to bring these costs down by streamlining the regulatory process?

If this current crisis teaches us anything, it must be that there is no substitute for adding supply.

Are we so arrogant or foolish that we think depression, mass unemployment and food shortages cannot happen here again;

We cannot conserve our way to prosperity when we lose water to the ocean and don't have any water to recycle.

I just don't get the warm fuzzies when I hear that the Federal Government is here to help me.

Well then, you shouldn't waste any more time, should you?

Are we making policy based on pre-determined outcomes?

For you, we have heard many examples in this committee of politically driven junk science that is masquerading under the phrase 'best available science,' and I mean stunning gaps in data that--anything that is contrary to predetermined…

Yet captive breeding isn't allowed to be included in many of these decisions involving endangered species, despite the fact it is often infinitely cheaper and more effective than other measures that can end up being ordered.

More water is better than less water.

If the climate continues to warm, as it has been on and off since the last Ice Age, snow packs will not be holding water as long.

What can you recommend to us as changes that need to be made at the Federal level to bring about this new era of water storage?