Political Quotes

“I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the committee who has worked very hard on this legislation in the last Congress and in this Congress. Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, California's drought is nature's fault, but our failure to prepare for it is our fault. In California, the ruling Democrats have not only obstructed the construction of new dams for the past 35 years but they have also actively sought to tear down existing ones. They have substituted conservation for desperately needed storage, and now that we face drought, we find that our few reservoirs are empty, and our conservation options are already exhausted. Worse, in the first years of this drought, 1.6 million acre-feet of water was dumped into the Pacific Ocean for the care and amusement of the delta smelt. Mr. Chairman, 800,000 acre-feet--enough for 4 million Californians--was deliberately drained from our now empty reservoirs just several months ago, knowing that that water was desperately needed to support the threatened human population. Part of that water was taken from Central Valley farmers, who now face economic extinction. This bill corrects these tragic policies. It is true, we cannot make it rain, but we can take measures to stop this lunacy, increase storage capacity, reinforce existing water rights, and ensure that we never again must face a crisis of this magnitude.…”