Eventually the Rain Will Stop

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Madam Speaker, this week, California is preparing for more atmospheric rivers that are bringing much-needed rain to our State.

This is welcome news to the Central Valley farmers who have suffered through the last 3 years of exceptional drought.

While I am grateful for this rain, and I know my fellow farmers are, as well, we have all seen this situation before. Eventually this rain will stop.

That is why it is critical to capture and store as much of this rain as physically possible so we don't put ourselves in this type of situation with another man-made water shortage again.

Extreme environmentalists and Sacramento bureaucrats have grossly mismanaged our water with complex and contradictory laws and regulations that control how much we are able to pump and what storage projects we are able to move forward with.

While I am grateful for the Governor for his temporary relief that he pushed for a few weeks back, we cannot let this water go to waste. We must maximize what can be moved at all times through the delta and invest in water storage infrastructure and conveyance projects so we can capture and store this critical resource. Thousands of livelihoods and the future of agriculture production in California and countless Americans we feed depend on it.

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