No energy bill without drought provisions, chairman says
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2016 - House Natural Resources Chairman
Rob Bishop says a final energy bill will have to include provisions to address
the drought in California and other Western states. The House-passed
legislation (S. 2012) includes provisions sponsored by Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif.,
that would roll back protections for endangered species to provide more water
for irrigation in the Central Valley.
“We’re going to have to have some elements of that. We’re
going to push for that,” said Bishop, one of 24 House Republicans who were
appointed to a conference committee to negotiate with the Senate on the energy
bill. Separately, Bishop, of Utah, won’t support a provision in the Senate’s
version of the bill that would permanently authorize the Land and Water
Conservation Fund, which pays for acquisition of land and water resources by
federal, state and local governments.
Valadao's Western Water and American
Food Security Act, which was folded into the House version of the
energy bill, would allow managers of California’s State Water Project and the
federal Central Valley Project to pump water for farms. The legislation would
essentially overturn biological opinions issued by the Fish and Wildlife
Service and National Marine Fisheries Service that ensure water flows for the
Delta smelt and salmonids, limiting the amount of water that can be stored for
use by farms.
California’s Democratic senators have refused to support the
Valadao provisions, and the White House threatened to veto a House
appropriations bill that also includes them. The White House’s statement
of administration policy on the spending bill included the assessment that
it would undermine efforts “to restore and maintain fish populations” in
California. The Sierra Club suggested those and other House provisions doomed
the effort to enact a new energy bill this year.
Bishop says of the Democratic critics, “They’ve got to pull
their heads out and solve the problem.” He stops short of saying that the exact
provisions from Valadao’s bill have to be in a final conference agreement on
energy legislation, but he says the agreement will have to allow for impounding
water for drought relief. “You’ve got to capture the stuff (water) first and
keep it. There’s no other way to do it,” he said.
It’s not clear yet whether there will be a conference
committee to write a compromise energy bill. The Senate has yet to agree to go
to conference with the House amid Democratic resistance to the House
legislation.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday wrote senators urging
them to support a vote to begin negotiating with the House. “America’s energy
landscape has changed dramatically since Congress last passed a multi-title
energy bill a decade ago, and it is crucial that federal energy policy reflect
these changes in order to maximize and prolong the benefits the recent energy
renaissance is producing,” the letter said.
#30
For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com
