Doug LaMalfa Demands Reversal Of Regulations That Are 'Choking Off Agriculture'

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During debate on the House floor, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) spoke in support of House Joint Resolution 78.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman I appreciate the opportunity to present and to carry

00:04this Congressional Review Act. Indeed trying to keep some reality involved in

00:10the listing of species as well as the overall operations of government and it's

00:16it's a listing of species in forming of regulations. So in support of HDA Res 78

00:25we want to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service misguided decision to

00:29list the San Francisco Bay Delta population of the longfin smelt as being

00:34endangered. Now what we have is actual evidence. A former director of Stanford's

00:40Center of Conservation Biology wrote a piece on this listing including these

00:45highlights. The Fish and Wildlife Service abandoned its allegiance to using the

00:50best available scientific information. The proposed listing ignores salient

00:55information gaps and shrugs off technical peer-reviewed criticisms that go to the

01:00heart of the argument for listing the species. To list the species the Fish and

01:04Wildlife Service employed unreliable data presented results from analyses that

01:08cannot be justified and made troubling predictions for the fate of the fish that

01:13are built on flawed assumptions akin to a house of cards. Fish and Wildlife Service

01:18used piecemeal data to try and establish population trends and size of this using

01:23detection methods not even designed for longfin smelt to justify this action. Basically no

01:29science and this has long been sought by environmental groups since they've run out of the regular

01:35smelt after tens of millions of acre feet of water have flowed out to the Delta. Indeed

01:41they need to be looking more at the issues going on with the effluent coming out of Bay Area cities

01:47from under underpowered sewer systems that has affected the Delta so negatively. Not some idea

01:53that farmers are getting too much water. At a point where farmers are now just got bumped up to a 50%

01:59allocation here the other day by state and federal water managers. We're seeing that it's going to

02:04negatively affect the food supply not only for California and its production but for the whole

02:09country. Now we have statistics that show that the amount of water flowing into the Delta is hardly being

02:15tapped. Indeed 80% of it goes right on out the Delta into the Pacific Ocean. So it's interesting to hear

02:22my colleague from the Central Coast excuse me the North Coast talking about rebuilding infrastructure

02:29as part of a solution we should be talking about here. Well we talk about it a lot and hopefully we

02:34can move the ball on it. We have an opportunity to build sites reservoir one and a half million acre

02:38feet of new storage. Raised Shasta Dam 18 feet 600,000 acre feet of new storage. If we would operate the pumps in the Delta,

02:45we would fill the San Luis Reservoir that would be available to the Central Valley. It came up 200,000

02:51acre feet short this year which is about the same amount as what they're predicting this listing will

02:56cause to short the Central Valley farmers down there if this listing is allowed to happen. Instead we get

03:05more and more water being demanded for environmental purpose which really doesn't fulfill an environmental purpose.

03:11Instead the blame gets shifted to something else. You know talk about tariffs. Well we're tariff

03:18so heavily you know almost 300% our dairy products are going into Canada. Something needs to be done

03:23for a reset. Rice into Japan up to 700% at some point. Tariffs need to be looked at but that's not this

03:29conversation. And using the longfin smelt as the latest weapon to take water away from farmers to take

03:34water away from people. We grow the some of the richest crops in the great Central Valley of California

03:39and that'll be denied to the whole country. You know tomatoes, pistachios, almonds that will not come

03:46from somewhere else unless we import them with lower quality standards etc etc. So we have indeed a lot going

03:54on here that is not really truthful. It's sad to hear that my colleague from the North Coast although

04:00we're in parallel districts the first and the second it seems like we're in parallel universes when I hear

04:06him starting to talk about defending agriculture because it's these policies introduction of wolves the

04:13tearing down of dams not rebuilding water infrastructure tearing down dams on the Klamath that now have caused

04:17people to be subject to flooding the water allocation of the Scott and Shasta Valley being taken away by some

04:23emergency drought decoration at the same time as they're being flooded. One thing after another taken

04:28away from farmers and instead given wolves and they want to introduce 1700 new grizzly bears into

04:34California is one of their ideas. Devastating livestock. So the ideas are coming out of this building and the

04:40regulatory buildings here are the ones that are choking off agriculture making food more expensive making

04:45options for people to buy great California grown products instead of having to import them. It's coming from

04:52here. It's certainly not the fault of what the Trump administration is trying to do in addition to

04:56building more water having more water available for people. You know why was it that delta pumps

05:02were able to build San Luis fill San Luis Reservoir two years ago to brim to the full to the full mark

05:08and they can't the last two years. Gentleman's time. I yield the gentleman one more minute. Thank you sir.

05:13Additional water flows that are demanded by the environmental left and certain representatives in

05:22this building and a lot of times they get them. The courts are stacked it seems against farmers

05:27against this but we have to fight back and this is a one one tool we have with this resolution 78 to review

05:36what government does and hold it accountable for when it does last minute unscientific pronouncements

05:44in this case yet another species that they use as a weapon against agriculture and against people's needs.

05:49So Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time on this. Thank you. The gentleman from California yields back.

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