Today the House
of Representatives passed a comprehensive water bill – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act (H.R.
3964) – to alleviate the water crisis in California.
Our bill – which
eases regulations artificially restricting our water supply, reduces the amount
of useable water flushed into the ocean, and allows us to store water in wet
years for use in dry ones – was denounced
by Governor Brown as an “unwelcome and divisive” proposal that would undermine
“years of progress” toward solving the water problem. Where has this wonderful
“progress” gotten us? In the midst of a major water crisis, we have no stored
water to draw from and we continue flushing critical water supplies into the
ocean. Governor Brown’s position is nothing more than a defense of the failed
status quo.
Similarly,
Senator Diane Feinstein blasted
our bill as “disingenuous,” “irresponsible,” and even “dangerous” – and it may
really be all those things, if you are so resistant to change that your
proposed solution
to the crisis is the meaningless appointment of a “federal drought task force”
and a “federal drought coordinator.”
The water
emergency is not the result of global warming or lack of rain, as our bill’s
opponents claim. Our ancestors in California built an amazing irrigation system
that can deliver a reliable water supply even during severe droughts. It is our
inability to use this system as it was intended – due to preposterous
regulations that put fish before families – that has created today’s water
calamity.
