Posted May 28, 2014
The
California Farm Bureau Federation (CFBF) applauded the U.S. Senate’s passage of
bill to address water problems caused by the drought and urged Congress to
begin negotiations to reconcile the bill with legislation passed earlier by the
House of Representatives, according to an article on AgAlert by Christine Souza
available here. AgWeb and SFGate also
reported on the story here and here.
CFBF
President Paul Wenger urged congressional leaders to promptly reconcile the
newly passed Senate bill with the House bill that passed in February.
“Now, the real work begins,"
Wenger said. "Water shortages are causing widespread suffering for California
family farmers and those who depend on them for jobs and environmental
stewardship. Now that each house has passed drought measures, we need to meld
the two in ways that provide the swiftest, most effective relief possible.”
Wenger applauded Sen. Dianne
Feinstein for her authorship of the Senate bill and Central Valley Reps. David
Valadao, Devin Nunes, Jim Costa and Jeff Denham for their work on the House
measure.
Feinstein described her Emergency
Drought Relief Act as a short-term solution that would provide federal and
state water agencies with additional flexibility to deliver water where it is
most needed during the drought.
“My hope is that this process can
proceed quickly and bypass many of the controversial issues that have been
raised in the past," Feinstein said. "While we do need long-term
solutions to the state's water problems, the bill the Senate passed authorizes
immediate actions to help California, and I think that's what we must focus on
and reach agreement quickly.”
Farm Bureau and other organizations
will monitor the upcoming negotiations closely, Wegner said.
“One reason the drought has hit
California so hard is that we have failed for the past 30 years to modernize
our water system,” he said. “California cannot afford another 20 or 30 years of
inaction. Drought and water shortages hit farmers first and hardest, but they
will cause losses that ricochet throughout the wider economy and the
environment. Congress must act quickly to ease the pain by finalizing effective
drought-relief legislation.”
Last week a preliminary report
issued by the University of California, Davis, estimated that water shortages,
caused by the drought, would result in the fallowing of
410,000 acres in the Central Valley.
This would lead to the loss of 14,500 jobs and an economic impact of
$1.7 billion.
For background on the California
drought, previous
posts from this blog are available here and here. For
more information on water law, please visit the National Agricultural Law
Center’s website here.
