House Republicans harangue federal, Calif. officials on response to crisis

E&E News
By Debra Kahn
March 20, 2014

House Republicans hammered California and federal water managers yesterday on their response to the Golden State's continuing drought, charging that they haven't done enough to ensure water supplies for farmers.

At a field hearing in Fresno, Calif., House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Republican members of California's House delegation called for legislative intervention in the state's water situation, which is forcing farmers to idle cropland in the Central Valley in response to curtailed deliveries from state and federal water-pumping projects.

Lawmakers directed their ire at a small threatened fish that lives in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the delta smelt. The Endangered Species Act limits pumping water south to millions of acres of farmland and cities when the fish approaches the infrastructure, which can suck the fish into the pumps and kill it.

Hastings singled out the 40-year-old law as ripe for reform. "Let's stop the deliberate diversion of billions of gallons of water to a 3-inch fish when the science has not demonstrated that the fish is being helped by the diversions," he said.

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who has been working with Hastings and 11 other Republicans on ESA reform, asked witnesses at the hearing whether the law needs to assess whether recovery of a listed species is feasible. The smelt has continued to decline even with the pumping curtailments, she pointed out.

"Should there be ... a concept in the Endangered Species Act where if it is documented, as this is, that providing more water ... does not in fact aid the recovery of a species, then there's no sense doing it?" she asked, to applause from the hearing attendees. "Does that make sense?"

Hastings, who announced last month he would retire at the end of the year, said he plans to begin the legislative process for ESA reform "in the next few weeks."

Lawmakers also stumped for construction of dams to hold more water over from wet to dry years, a longer-term fix that has wider bipartisan support. Reps. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) introduced a bill yesterday to build a 1.9 million-acre-foot reservoir in Northern California, a project known as the Sites Reservoir, while Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) proposed earlier this month to expand or build three more storage sites (E&E Daily, March 4).

Hastings urged federal and state officials to approve storage projects faster. "Feasibility studies on three storage projects here in California have gone on for over a decade," Hastings said. "Our great country put a man on the moon in less time." Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Regional Director David Murillo said the agency would have a final environmental impact statement completed for one project, the expansion of Shasta Dam, by the end of this year.

Lawmakers also criticized the Senate for not taking up a bill from Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), H.R. 3964, that passed the House last month. It would overturn environmental restrictions on water deliveries to the Central Valley, and it drew statements of opposition from President Obama and Gov. Jerry Brown (D) (E&E Daily, Feb. 6).

"At the end of the day, until we get something to the president's desk for his signature, we cannot solve the problem," Valadao said.

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) singled out Brown for lack of progress on storage while supporting other giant infrastructure projects like a statewide high-speed rail line.

"If California had its priorities straight, we'd be building water storage instead of a train that may never come," he said.

Hastings criticized the State Water Resources Control Board for not sending its chairwoman, Felicia Marcus, to testify at the hearing. "It was only yesterday that we got a letter saying that she was not going to show up," he said. "I'm very, very disappointed that she is not here."

Marcus also drew fire from Denham, who pointed out that she previously worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been involved in court cases over the smelt's ESA protections. "The governor who's claiming we have an emergency here continues to appoint the very same people who are suing us on all of our water projects," Denham said.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) questioned state and federal representatives on exactly how much water has been diverted from the Central Valley to protect the smelt and account for other environmental concerns. He placed the figure at 2.5 million acre-feet annually and expressed frustration when Murillo could not confirm that.

Nunes held up a plastic water bottle. "We're not this much short, right?" he asked sarcastically.

"We're more than that. I agree with that," Murillo said.