On the recordDecember 9, 2016
as my colleague said, I definitely have a voice challenge so I am not going to speak long. I do want to join my colleague in urging Members of the Senate to vote no on this legislation. As she just described, it is a bill that has some great attributes, but it has one major fatal flaw, and that fatal flaw is that the U.S. Senate is being asked tonight to negotiate and decide a water settlement for the State of California that has been fought over, litigated, and is still in discussion of how to resolve it in a balanced way among all of the interests, not just in California but in the region. Oh, no, because someone has a mighty pen and can in the House of Representatives drop an earmark of over half a billion dollars into a bill as a poison pill--I think the newspapers had it right: Stop the midnight rider. How ironic that it is almost midnight, and we are going to be voting on such legislation. My colleagues who bring us decided-upon water agreements that have been worked out and want us to bless them so that the agencies can fund them--I have no problems with that. We have tried to move similar legislation in regular order, but this is usurping the individuals who are trying to balance water and fish and river rights and community issues and regional issues and saying that we are going to kill fish as a way to balance the water and drought of the future.…
