Doc Hastings

I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), the subcommittee chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee dealing with this legislation.

So in delisting the bald eagle, we had to demonstrate that we had a conservation framework going forward.

No matter the industry, all of these job creators deserve to have certainty, clarity, and transparency from the administration.

This hearing is not an attack on the wind industry or wind energy. It is about how the administration is developing and implementing enforcement policies.

This is a deliberate slow-rolling of documents and answers. And, frankly, I have had enough of that.

This administration has been less than transparent on this topic.

There are legitimate concerns that the administration is implementing these laws in an arbitrary fashion.

The administration has developed specific guidance to assist the burgeoning wind industry, and has selectively prosecuted only a handful of violations.

It doesn't have to be this way.

This followed with 2 good water years.

In our regions, food grows where water flows.

We cannot enact law in our country unless both houses act.

It is now time for the Senate to act.

I would just remind you, our country put a man on the moon in less time than that.

We are literally throwing that legacy away by thinking that conservation alone can resolve water shortages, because it can't.

The Endangered Species Act needs reform, and we plan on our committee to begin that process in the next several weeks.

Let's stop the deliberate diversion of billions of gallons of water to a 3-inch fish where the science has not demonstrated that the fish is being helped by diversions.

It doesn't have to be that way. As a matter of fact, had the bill that we passed out of the last Congress passed and been signed into law, we wouldn't be in this particular situation today.

As Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, I have painfully watched the cycle that has gone on over here for the past several years.

Entire agriculture economies and ways of life grew around our ability to irrigate these once-dormant lands.

It is a pleasure for me to be back here in Fresno because my regions that I have the privilege to represent are very much the same as the Central Valleys of California.

I am prepared to close. I have the right to close, so I will reserve the balance of my time.

I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), the sponsor of the underlying legislation.

I thank the gentleman for his work on the underlying bill and his amendment. I support the amendment.

I will advise my friend from California that I am prepared to close and will reserve the balance of my time.