Date: 2000-10-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Madam Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker. S. 1694. as amended. includes important provisions that affect programs and water management activities under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Reclamation. Most of these provisions have previously been considered by the 106th Congress. and none of them are controversial. Section 507 of S. 1694. as amended. addresses the issue of how the costs of the Sugar Pine Unit of the Central Valley Project are to be accounted for. A guiding principle of my approach to Reclamation law has been that the beneficiaries of a project or program should bear their fair share of costs. Generally. this equitable concept that meant increasing the costs or repayment obligations of project beneficiaries so that they bear a fair share for the public benefits received. In the case of the Sugar Pine transfer being considered here. Section 507 of the measure relies on the same principle. but for the opposite purpose of relieving numerous Central Valley contractors. both municipal/industrial and agricultural. from project cost allocations where they received no benefits whatever. In short. the authorization for Sugar Pine Dam and Reservoir in 1965 (P.L. 89161) specifically directed that the project be integrated. both operationally and financially. into the Central Valley Project. As a factual matter. operational integration never occurred. yet the costs of Sugar Pine have nonetheless been included in the pooled costs of the CVP. to be recovered from all CVP contractors through cost of service rates for water which are now in the process of being implemented. My remarks here are intended to clarify the intent and meaning of Section 507 of the Sugar Pine transfer legislation. which relieves CVP contractors of this inequitable financial obligation until operational integration occurs. Section 507 reflects the recognition of Congress that the Sugar Pine Project is not integrated operationally into the CVP. as well as the principal that there was and is no authority. in the 1965 authorization of Sugar Pine or elsewhere. for these project costs to be included in the pooled reimbursable costs of the CVP in the absence of operational integration. The exclusion of "all costs" by Section 507 is meant to ensure that not only principal. but also interest charges on unpaid principle. are excluded from pooled reimbursable costs. This is intended to be consistent with the treatment provided in similar legislation related to the Sly Park Unit of the CVP. which was passed recently by the Congress in the Energy and Water appropriations bill soon to be signed by the President. The Sly Park provision was drafted in the other body. but the Sly Park language addressed similar facts and had the same purpose as the Sugar Pine bill. Both involve transfers of project ownership for small California Bureau of Reclamation projects which originally were directed to be integrated. into the CVP but never were. and both provide for the exclusion of costs which were impropery included in the obligations of CVP contractors even though the project was never operationally integrated into the CVP. With respect to the costs to be excluded. the Sly Park bill terms them "nonreimbursable and nonretumable." the same result which is intended here.