Date: 2004-10-06
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker. I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from California and the gentleman from California for their assistance. and leadership. in moving this legislation. along with the gentlewoman from California from our.side of the aisle. I also want to thank Senator BOXER and Senator FEINSTEIN for helping to get this successfully through the. Senate. I just want to raise a couple of points. and that is that this past summer. when an earlier version of this legislation was on the House floor. I offered a motion. along with the gentlewoman from California to correct what I believed was a fatal flaw in that legislation. the socalled preauthorization provision of the House. that would have granted a blank check to Federal agencies to spend billions of dollars on dams and other projects in California. It was our strong belief that this provision would in fact never pass the Senate. it would become controversial and bog down this matter in the legislative process. Fortunately. that provision of this legislation was removed at the insistence of members of the Senate. And the discussion that somehow. if we removed it. it would blow up the Calfed program has turned out to be the opposite. The removal of that has allowed Senators from other parts of the country to let us proceed for this long overdue legislation and hold together the coalition that was put together in the House in support of this legislation on both sides of the aisle. Again. I want to thank all of the tireless efforts that Senator FEINSTEIN put into negotiating this legislation in the Senate. There is no question this was most difficult for the. gentleman from California in the House. I just asked him whether or not various Members of the House were happy. and he told me happiness was not the test in this legislation. but perhaps relative happiness was the. test. And I think maybe. that being the goal. we have put together support for this legislation. And I want to thank him for those negotiations. The bill we are considering today contains one complicated provision having to do with the balance in the Calfed program. Concerns have been raised that the finding of imbalance in this provision would be disruptive to the Calfed program. This should not be the case. Congress might indeed exercise its prerogative and refuse to authorize a surface storage project if a less expensive or less damaging water supplyr alternative exists. That action would trigger this rebalancing provision. which includes a specific remedy and report to the Congress that should include those alternative supplies. As in the case of surface storage facilities. these alternative water supplies should be financed by the principle of "beneficiary pays." just like every other aspect of the Calfed program. Finally. it is important to note that the bill reflects the fact that ecosystem restoration and several other. Calfed activities. that have not received new authorization in this bill. are already authorized under Federal law. As the program moves forward. the authorization will include the balanced funding for these program elements as Well. Again. I want to thank all of the members of the Committee on Resources. and I want to thank the gentlewoman from California . and the gentleman from California (Mr. "POMBO). who we share areas covering the great Sacramento San Joaquin Delta in our State. and the gentleman from California was able to get some people to slow down and give some serious consideration to the problems that have plagued the users of the delta. both the agricultural interests arid our municipal users and the environmental concbrns in the delta to make sure that in fact we could come up with the most balanced program possible to meet all of those needs. " .Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.