Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse), my colleague on the Rules Committee, for yielding. Mr. Speaker, in the West, water is life. Coloradans must wisely steward the precious water flowing through our lands. That is why we are so focused on water storage projects. Unfortunately, many water storage projects in my State face significant setbacks in permitting due to a long list of regulatory checkboxes. Local, State, and Federal agencies all have their own requirements. For the past several years, I have followed multiple important water storage projects on the front range of Colorado that deeply impact Coloradans. Year after year, the shovels remain untouched as the water projects inched their way through the regulatory permitting process. Water projects should not take over 10 years to permit and then only a few years to build. Much of this delay occurs because each level of government--local, State, and Federal--requires their own studies and permitting checklists, even though many of those requirements are the same or only slightly different. H.R. 1654 makes this process more efficient, allowing the Bureau of Reclamation to coordinate the Federal and State permitting processes, so that we can avoid unnecessary duplication and so that we can better unify the approval requirements. H.R.…”