Tom McClintock

The purpose of today's hearing is to identify the current impediments to increasing water storage and hydropower capacity, and to look at new concepts on the construction of smaller high elevation dams.

Well, should an economically viable water project not pay for itself?

You have all told heartrending stories of threats by your own government, of everything from jail time to financial ruin.

It seems to me that we are moving more and more toward a European model vision of sovereignty.

What we suffer is a super abundance of bureaucracy and a catastrophic shortage of vision and political will. That is what has to change.

Thank you very much.

Our problem is not supply--it is distribution.

The status quo is simply not working and the purpose of today's hearing is to chart a path that leads us to a new era of abundance.

Just in that single watershed, 30 potential sites. So suitable geological sites are not in short supply.

Cheaper water is better than more expensive water.

Western irrigated agriculture is a strategic national resource, and the role of the Federal Government in the 21st century should be to protect and enhance that resource.

The statement that this shutdown is the fault of Republicans, when Republicans have repeatedly voted to keep the government open, is simply false.

I would remind my friend from New Hampshire that three times the House voted to fund the government.

I would remind my colleagues that incessantly repeating a falsehood does not make it a truth.

We must vote on a clean resolution, continuing resolution, with no add-ons, I mean none, clean; open the Federal Government and put people back to work.

We will also hear H.R. 3176, the Drought Relief Act, offered by Mr. DeFazio.

We must stop fiddling while Rome burns. The answers we need for this hearing demand that the government be reopened.

As you know, I invited you to testify on H.R. 3176 at the Water and Power Subcommittee's October 10, 2013 hearing.

Mr. Tipton's bill simply prohibits the Federal Government from using what should be a routine permitting process to extract long-held water rights from private users.

So with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.

So hopefully we won't move forward until we have an opportunity with a restored government to have the Forest Service come in and explain its new directive and see if that doesn't do what we think it needs to do, then take more targeted…

While you unfortunately chose not to attend, it is your agency's responsibility to provide the Administration's views on H.R. 3176.

This amounts to an uncompensated taking and is a violation of both the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

I request that you provide written comments on the bill no later than November 1, 2013.

It seems that the U.S. Forest Service is going out of its way to make life difficult for people, to inconvenience people, and almost seem to be reversing the entire original purpose of the Forest Service.