On the recordMarch 13, 2014
I am very pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), a member of the Natural Resources Committee. Mr. LaMALFA. I thank the chairman for yielding. Madam Chair, I am glad to be able to speak today on H.R. 3189. This bill will have a great impact on many of the resource holders in my district here in the northeast part of California. Yes, we are going through a drought, but this isn't just an issue that might affect ski resorts or even ranchers. This is a property rights issue that we should be looking at all across the country. It is very dangerous when the U.S. Forest Service or BLM can just come in and arbitrarily decide, after long-held water rights--some of these ranches have been around 150 years or more--that they can change the game--change the rules. The ranches have been around longer than some of these bureaucracies; yet they want to come in and say: we are going to change the game because we have decided it should be different. Now, when you have this type of right under fire for something as beneficial--farming and ranching, grazing is actually beneficial to forest land, towards fire suppression--and yet, we have people who think that this is somehow a special right or something that is going to take additional water away from other people. These are already adjudicated water rights--pre-1914 water rights in California.…
