Heidi Heitkamp: “I say thank you to my colleagues from North Dakota and South Dakota. Mr. President, this is not a new issue. This is an…”

“I say thank you to my colleagues from North Dakota and South Dakota. Mr. President, this is not a new issue. This is an issue--even back in the 1990s--I dealt with as the State's attorney general. Why do I mention that? I mention it because we were able to persuade the corps at the time that the intake pipe they were attempting to charge for surplus water was actually in the original river bed. I--just tongue-in-cheek--suggested I would charge them for putting their water on top of our water, and maybe they should pay a fee to us for the storage we were going to allow them. In all seriousness, this is not an issue that is going to go away. If any of our colleagues think this is an issue where we can just let it go and ride it out, this is an issue that has percolated for a lot of years. It has culminated right now to this effort to be proactive in this body to prevent litigation, prevent excess expense, and prevent a deterioration of a relationship that is essential to making sure we have flood protection and all of the other good that came out of the Flood Control Act. So the time is now to take an immediate step to prevent this issue from going any further and to address the concerns that upstream States have. I want to spend just a few moments talking about this from a legal perspective and what could happen if, in fact, the Federal Government engaged in litigation with the States. We have heard today from both South Dakota and North Dakota Senators.…”