Political Quotes

“I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the Natural Resources Committee. Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, California's regulatory drought was causing enormous economic damage and human hardship long before the historic natural drought that has now stricken the State. And through all of those years, the House has passed legislation repeatedly to address it. Finally, after years of inaction, the Senate produced a modest measure to provide very limited flexibility for water managers to deal with it. This bill largely reflects those provisions. It is a temporary, stopgap measure that suspends no environmental laws and no regulations. It simply tasks Federal water managers to conserve our water for beneficial human use to the maximum extent possible once all State and Federal environmental and water rights laws have been fulfilled. Let me repeat: the bill explicitly requires all environmental laws and regulations to be adhered to. All the House added to the Senate bill are provisions to strengthen water rights for areas of origin by adding Federal protection over these rights. During the worst drought in California's history, we continue to release billions of gallons of water from our dams just to adjust river temperatures for the fish. Sadly, this bill doesn't even affect this wasteful practice. But during the next year and a half, it does give limited flexibility to water managers within these laws.…”