Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. There has been much discussion on the floor about preemption. In fact, the previous speaker emphasized that in his close. I am from a western State; I'm from Washington. If anybody should be cautious about preemption, it is certainly me. And I say that because I represent an area that has two over-half-a-million-acre, or half-a- million-acre, irrigation districts. So I understand about preemption and Western water law. But in the context of today's debate, the California water system is unique. Here we have a massive Federal system, the Central Valley Project and a massive State water project called the State Water Project, and it operates as one combined unit. This is what is very important, Mr. Chairman. The coordinated approach was requested by the State and codified by the Federal Government in 1986. That's when water law was preempted. They asked for it in 1986. In 1992, it was further preempted by amendments to the law in the Central Valley Project in 1992. So what we did in committee is we offered an amendment that was adopted. Let me read the amendments by Mr. Tipton and Mr. Gosar, and it says: Congress finds and declares that (1) coordinated operations between the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, previously requested and consented to by the State of California and the Federal Government, require assertion of Federal supremacy to protect existing water rights throughout the system. That's in California.…”