Jason Chaffetz: “I want to thank Chairman Hastings, my colleague, the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Bishop, for his support in this…”

“I want to thank Chairman Hastings, my colleague, the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Bishop, for his support in this bill that we introduced, the section that will be included in this bill dealing with the Diamond Fork System. In Utah, we're blessed to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the word. We're also one of the fastest growing States in the Nation. The Diamond Fork System, which is included as part of the Central Utah Project, has the capacity to generate up to 50 megawatts of hydroelectric power. Currently, thousands of acre-feet of water flow through the Diamond Fork System through tunnels, pipes, and canals each and every second. This water is necessarily slowed through energy dissipaters as they travel from Strawberry Reservoir to the Wasatch Front. This bill would allow those dissipaters to be easily converted into turbines, thus being able to generate the necessary energy that we need along the Wasatch Front. The purpose of this bill, which has been included in H.R. 2578, is to waive the unrecoverable sunk cost payment requirements that are inhibiting development of the hydropower at a Bureau of Reclamation facility in Utah. Existing Department of the Interior regulation inhibits hydropower development on the Diamond Fork unit.…”