{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/house-water-and-power-subcommittee-hearing-on-hr-4719-and-hr-5487", "House Water and Power Subcommittee Hearing on H.R. 4719 and H.R. 5487 Representative Tom McClintock Opening Statement June 17, 2010", "2010-06-17", "2010", "2010-06", "Republican", "House", "CA", "Tom McClintock", "M001177", "mcclintock.house.gov", "mcclintock", "https://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "June 17, 2010\n\nWashington, DC \u2013 Representative Tom McClintock (R \u2013 Granite Bay) delivered the following opening remarks today at the Natural Resources Water and Power Subcommittee Hearing. The hearing was held to discuss H.R. 4719 and H.R. 5487. Included is a discussion of water in the Southwest border region of the United States and water research.\n\nOpening Statement by Water and Power Subcommittee Ranking Member Tom McClintock:\n\n\u201cToday we\u2019re hearing two bills that both invite the question: what is Congress thinking?\n\n\u201cThe first bill is HR 5487 that continues to throw millions of dollars \u2013 90 millions of dollars, to be precise -- at 54 Water Resource Research Institutes that have been spending money since the Water Resources Research Act of 1984 was adopted.\n\n\u201cBefore we throw more taxpayer money at them \u2013 bearing in mind that we don\u2019t have that money to begin with \u2013 we have to borrow it \u2013 we wanted to take a look at what we\u2019ve gotten.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve studied raising water rates and arrived at the stunning and groundbreaking discovery that if the price goes up, people use less. One conducted a blind \u201ctaste test\u201d of water in the District of Columbia. They discovered it tasted a lot like water. In Kentucky, they used this money to study salamander reproductive potency. Presumably they discovered that salamanders, left to their own devices, tend to make more salamanders.\n\n\u201cTo those who may argue not all of that was federal money, I would remind them of McClintock\u2019s Fifth Law of Political Physics, that all funds are fungible and all of these institutes were receiving this money.\n\n\u201cIf this isn\u2019t enough to raise some eyebrows, I must move on to note that the bill moves these institutes farther from their purported mission: to produce more water resources \u2013 to what it euphemistically calls \u201cnon-structural\u201d measures. Translated from bureaucratese, that means the development of more wetlands \u2013 a previous generation called them swamps \u2013 and associated farmland retirement at a time when we need more food production not less.\n\n\u201cMany of us on the minority side believe that this Congress has already done enough to make farmers an endangered species; I ask why we need to use federal dollars to hunt farmers to the brink of extinction.\n\n\u201cNext, I should note that this program requires matching state dollars. Before we reauthorize it, I would like to find out why this requirement has not been enforced. Available USGS information suggests that several of these institutes have failed to follow matching requirements, and have in effect, taken the money and run.\n\n\u201cWhich all would suggest the need for more oversight and not less. Under current law, the USGS is required to submit a program report to Congress over how this program has spent our money every three years. The USGS has yet to submit that report. And yet, it is proposed not only that we further fund it without knowing how this money has been spent \u2013 the bill also reduces oversight further by subjecting the spending to review only once every five years. So instead of not getting a report every three years under this bill we won\u2019t get a report every five years.\n\n\u201cMoving along\u2026\n\n\u201cThe other bill raises one question regarding water supplies along the Mexican border while ignoring a more important one. I refer to HR 4719 that seeks to create a permanent governmental entity aimed at providing more funding and water to the border region, although $1.4 billion federal dollars have already been spent for this purpose from 2000 to 2008.\n\n\u201cWe will hear testimony later today which questions why this bill is not focused instead on protecting the infrastructure that currently provides water. We will hear that the Rio Grande River has become \u201cnotorious for illegal crossings of persons and drugs\u201d and of a recently thwarted plot by the Zeta Drug Cartel to blow up the Falcon Dam.\n\n\u201cWe have a picture of drug smugglers swimming across the Rio Grande that puts the issue in perspective. The open nature of the border has serious consequences not only on our water supplies but this nation as a whole. This Congress needs to step up and secure our borders to stop the violence and protect our infrastructure and I hope that the focus of this bill can be altered to perform the core purpose of this national government: to protect the integrity of its own borders.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T21:13:33Z"]], "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-subcommittee-hearing-on-hr-4719-and-hr-5487"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0486820247024298, "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"}