On the recordDecember 9, 2016
as the Senator from California knows, one of the States concerned about this is Arizona because they have kind of been left out of that discussion. It also says to people: You don't have to have these discussions amongst everybody together; you can just write it into law. My understanding is that our colleagues from Florida and Alabama also have a similar concern. People are trying to use the legislative process to unbalance the negotiations so they can legislate instead of negotiate. Not only are they trying to legislate instead of negotiate, they are trying to use earmarks to do it and overrule existing law. So am I correct, to the Senator from California--are we going to get anywhere with getting California more water if, in fact, this ends up in courts and it is stayed, and you really won't get any water in the next few years? I should make a footnote for my colleague from California. Thank you for your compliment. I had to chair a 3-hour hearing once on the San Joaquin River settlement. It was about 18 years of dispute on what to do about the San Joaquin water. Because of that, I learned a lot about the fights in California and all of the problems that California had then. This was at the time my colleague Tim Johnson was the chair of that subcommittee and had been stricken ill, and they asked me if I could step in. I had no idea I was going to spend 3 hours hearing about 18 years of litigation.…
