{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/house-water-and-power-sub-committee-opening-statement", "House Water and Power Sub-Committee, Opening Statement", "2010-02-04", "2010", "2010-02", "Republican", "House", "CA", "Tom McClintock", "M001177", "mcclintock.house.gov", "mcclintock", "https://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Opening Statement\n\nCongressman Tom McClintock\n\nHouse Water and Power Sub-Committee\n\nFebruary 4, 2010.\n\nLast week, Republicans held a listening forum in Fresno to hear directly from the people of California\u2019s Central Valley who have been devastated by the federal government\u2019s willful decision to turn off their water to indulge the environmental left\u2019s pet causes.\n\nI\u2019m sorry this sub-committee chose not to attend. If my colleagues had attended, they would have heard the rain outside, while inside they would have heard that up to 10,000 extra acre feet of water is being sent out to the ocean PER DAY because of federal environmental regulations. As Tom Birmingham from the Westlands Water District just said in the Contra Costa Times, \u201cUnder the federal rules, the more it rains, the more water we lose.\u201d This is insanity.\n\nTo make matters worse \u2013 and a day after our listening session in Fresno \u2013 the administration tried to misrepresent the release of ALREADY SCHEDULED water deliveries as some sort of great new relief to the Valley. This prompted the Fresno Bee \u2013 hardly a hotbed of conservative activism \u2013 to say that Secretary Salazar (quote) \u201ceither doesn\u2019t understand the complicated Western water picture or he thinks Valley residents can be fooled by his pronouncements.\u201d\n\nThis is the same Secretary Salazar who admitted to the Natural Resources Committee last year that the government had the authority to turn the pumps back on but that it chose not to do so because (quote) \u201cit would be like admitting failure.\u201d\n\nAbsent administration action, we have a bill languishing in the Natural Resources committee that will turn those pumps back on, authored by Mr. Nunes, but the committee obstinately refuses to hear it. Instead, we have Mr. Costa\u2019s bill to use so-called stimulus funding to build fish screens. This is now being touted as some great new relief to the Valley. We\u2019re not willing to turn the pumps back on \u2013 which costs taxpayers nothing \u2013 but we\u2019re more than happy to shovel untold millions of dollars for fish screens and other environmental mitigations.\n\nThe approach of the majority party reminds me of something Leo Tolstoy wrote about the Czar\u2019s despotic rule. He wrote, \u201cI sit on a man\u2019s back choking him and making him carry me, and all the while I assure him and anyone who will listen that I am very sympathetic to his plight and willing to do everything I can to help \u2013 except by getting off his back.\u201d\n\nMadam Chairwoman, this is becoming farcical. The people of the San Joaquin Valley are not asking for taxpayer handouts, they are simply asking Congress to find the political will to act and to act now. An almond orchard that dies for lack of water isn\u2019t going to produce almonds this year. But it also isn\u2019t going to produce almonds next year or the year after. We are now in imminent danger of destroying the agricultural infrastructure of the Central Valley \u2013 solely because of the intransigence of this very sub-committee.\n\nSo I say, as plainly as I can \u2013 Mr. Salazar, turn on these pumps. Madam Chairwoman, turn on these pumps.\n\nThe time to act is long overdue. There is nothing that I can find in this bill that will restore water deliveries to the Central Valley this year. NOTHING. There is very little in this bill that will directly deliver additional water to the Central Valley ever.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T21:13:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/house-water-and-power-sub-committee-opening-statement"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4613401144742966, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}