Tom McClintock

Actually, I think people would be appalled at the per-fish cost of many of these mandates, which, in many cases that I have seen, runs into the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars per fish.

Is this a cheap form of electricity? Is this a good investment for our taxpayers?

All of this discussion about changing the process is simply averting the responsibility that we all have to follow that process.

Record unemployment, record increases in energy prices. Why don't you develop the vast reserves we have?

How do we lessen our dependence on foreign oil by prohibiting the development of our domestic supplies?

The point is when we look for more oil we find it. The problem is that we have been prohibited even from exploring vast tracts.

Why not just say no more borrowing, except by extraordinary majority vote of the Congress, say three-fourths of the Congress, for a single object or work?

We have not passed a budget in the Senate in nearly three years.

Proportionally, the drilling footprint on ANWR would be as a postage stamp is to an entire football field.

I would like to just test out a theory that I have evolved over the last few years since I arrived here at the Congress.

We have been embarking upon a policy of prohibiting development of our energy reserves to the point where they have become scarce.

The principal focus of today's hearing is to examine obstacles that the federal government has placed in the way of developing clean, cheap, abundant and reliable hydropower.

I appreciate Chairman McClintock's commitment to examining and ultimately pushing an aggressive legislative agenda.

I would hope this common-sense legislation aimed at eliminating bureaucratic red tape would garner strong bipartisan support, much like H.R. 795.

We learned, the reason this isn't happening is solely because federal regulations have made it economically infeasible to do so.

The EPA sets a tolerance level at 24.5 parts per billion. The State of California...is at six parts per billion.

So the process is at least a year now, or two years from our current experience.

I am not providing testimony, Mr. Baca.

Well, Mr. Tipton has already pointed out 1400 megawatts, the capacity of a Glen Canyon Dam, just in Colorado alone.

The NEPA process is timely, and it is expensive. It is also uncertain.

Here is the concern that I would like to express, not with respect to this bill, but with respect to this Administration's priorities.

This bill authorizes more hydropower development at federal canals and pipelines, eliminates unnecessary paperwork associated with the National Environmental Policy Act while allowing for environmental protection.

This measure has gone through the Subcommittee, and was passed by the House Natural Resource's Committee in the One Hundred and Eleventh Congress by bipartisan support.

H.R. 2915 would repeal Western's borrowing authority to build electric transmission under section 301 of the Hoover Power Plant Act of 1984.

The principal focus of today's hearing is to examine obstacles that the Federal Government has placed in the way of developing clean, cheap, abundant, and reliable hydropower through small generators on existing canals and pipelines.