Title: Recognizing the significance of California ricelands to wildlife conservation.
Policy area: Environmental Protection

Summary:
This resolution recognizes the importance of the California ricelands to the local habitat and supports stakeholders' preservation efforts.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1049 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






117th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1049

   Recognizing the significance of California ricelands to wildlife 
                             conservation.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 7, 2022

Mr. Thompson of California (for himself, Mr. Costa, Mr. Garamendi, Mr. 
   LaMalfa, Ms. Matsui, Mr. Panetta, and Mr. Valadao) submitted the 
 following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Natural 
                               Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
   Recognizing the significance of California ricelands to wildlife 
                             conservation.

Whereas the California Rice Commission works, on behalf of its farmers and 
        millers, to enhance and sustain wildlife resources in California's great 
        Central Valley;
Whereas California rice is commonly referred to as the ``Environmental Crop'';
Whereas California rice growers have effectively developed and utilized 
        innovative water conservation strategies, such as recirculation and 
        laser leveling, to use 20 percent less water to grow 25 percent more 
        rice;
Whereas the California Rice Commission has aggressively developed solar projects 
        to generate approximately 75 percent of the electrical power needs for 
        its drying and milling operations;
Whereas the California rice growers reduced their rice straw burning by 
        approximately 90 percent and shifted to winter flooding to decompose 
        rice straw, a practice that dramatically improved regional air quality 
        and is now essential habitat for waterbirds in the Pacific Flyway;
Whereas California rice growers transform their working wetland agriculture to 
        surrogate habitat for migrating waterbirds by adopting conservation 
        practices to sustain and enhance these critical habitat areas;
Whereas the University of California, Davis, and the University of California 
        Agriculture and Natural Resources, working collaboratively with the rice 
        industry, conducts research and outreach where University of California 
        Cooperative Extension production guidelines have been widely adopted by 
        growers resulting in sustainable and economic rice production, while 
        providing a host of ecosystem services such as improved natural habitat 
        and water quality;
Whereas the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service 
        has partnered with the California Rice Commission to invest 
        approximately $30,000,000 over the past decade to implement annual 
        riceland habitat enhancement projects benefitting the Pacific Flyway;
Whereas the California Rice Commission works closely with many highly recognized 
        wildlife conservation organizations focused on maintaining California's 
        wildlife-friendly rice acres that are now essential for the health of 
        the Pacific Flyway;
Whereas California rice provides over 50 percent of the food consumed by the 
        6,000,000 to 7,000,000 waterfowl that reside in the Central Valley each 
        winter;
Whereas California's 500,000 acres of ricelands serve as ``surrogate wetlands'' 
        that are now essential to supporting hundreds of wetland-dependent 
        species in a State that has lost more than 90 percent of its historic 
        wetlands;
Whereas California's ricelands are designated as a Shorebird Habitat of 
        International Significance by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve 
        Network;
Whereas the Central Valley Joint Venture's 2020 Implementation Plan 
        significantly relies upon flooded ricelands to meet its California 
        habitat objectives that are integral to goals of the North American 
        Waterfowl Management Plan, which the United States ratified in 1986; and
Whereas science has demonstrated that floodplain wetlands are critical energy 
        sources for river ecosystems, for both fish populations as well as water 
        birds, and the California rice industry, working with its salmon 
        recovery partners, is testing and developing strategies to 
        ``reactivate'' portions of the historic Sacramento Valley floodplain to 
        enhance juvenile salmon rearing habitat in winter-flooded rice fields 
        and improve the delivery of flood-plain derived fish food resources from 
        rice fields to juvenile salmon in the Sacramento River: Now, therefore, 
        be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives recognizes the 
significance of the California ricelands as essential Pacific Flyway 
habitat and supports the collective efforts of the California rice 
industry, water management agencies, university researchers, and 
wildlife conservation partners to continue conservation efforts, 
strongly supported by Congress through its Farm Bill conservation 
programs, to preserve and enhance California riceland habitats for 
future generations to enjoy.
                                 <all>