Rob Bishop: “I appreciate the opportunity of going through all these amendments. This is one amendment that does not necessarily move…”

“I appreciate the opportunity of going through all these amendments. This is one amendment that does not necessarily move us forward in the process. I wish it did. It did not. Sometimes there are even little tiny bits and pieces that happen to be in there that are one of the reasons why, if we were starting from scratch again, I would ask to be removed. For example, Mr. Huffman does name one of the funds in here--the fisheries conservation and management fund--after a gentleman whose association's members have been party to more than 20 Federal cases brought against the Federal agency since 2007. Much of that litigation has been aimed at the Bureau of Reclamation water projects and farmers and ranchers who serve by them. Congress should not be rewarding such serial litigation. That is one of the things I would have asked to have been removed had we started from scratch in this process. But above all, the amendment simply erases the flexibility, erases the transparency, and erases the science improvements that are part of the underlying bill that are so essential; that the elements of those people who live in these communities, who recreate in these areas, who use the commercial side, the fishing side, have all said we are not doing what we need to do; that the present system does have flaws in it and needs to be changed, and we need to move forward on that bill. The underlying bill does that. This amendment does not do that.…”