WASHINGTON, D.C.— U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks at Tuesday’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power hearing on S. 2902, the Western Water Supply and Planning Enhancement Act of 2016.
S. 2902 includes several Barrasso-authored provisions to help develop and maintain a clean and abundant water supply in the West.
Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“I also want to thank Senator Flake for introducing S. 2902, the Western Water Supply and Planning Enhancement Act of 2016. He’s done it with me and my Western colleagues, Senators Daines, Risch, Heller and McCain.
“This bill is a collaboration of months of work between our offices, most of whom are members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“At a time when water issues have made the forefront of the headlines in places like California, and Flint, Michigan, the water supply needs of the West as a whole can be forgotten by those who do not live where we live.
“The bill that we’ve introduced addresses the need of the abundant, consistent, and clean supply of water, for all of our communities.
“Most of these communities in the West are rural, and they’re agricultural based communities, as Pat O’Toole who is here from Wyoming clearly knows.
“Working families operate ranches and farms, and depend on water for their livestock, to grow crops such as alfalfa to feed their herds of cattle.
“Water resources in the West have always been scarce, and demands on the scarce supplies continue to increase.
“We have more people moving to the West to live, to work and to raise their families.
“We have more regulations coming from Washington putting restrictions on where water can go, sometimes in favor of species as opposed to working families.
“Weather events such as drought only makes our water needs even greater.
“The proposals contained in S. 2902, the Western Water Supply and Planning Enhancement Act, seek to provide more water for our communities.
“Our legislation includes bills that I have authored and introduced that will fix aging water infrastructure such as irrigation canals that serve our ranching communities, create efficiencies in federal permitting of new water storage through better coordination of federal agencies, compile the maintenance backlog of Bureau of Reclamation’s aging facilities so Congress can actually begin to address them, and protect existing water rights from federal overreach for water users.
“There are many other provisions authored by my colleagues in this bill that are going to develop long-term water supplies and enhance the use of existing water supply infrastructure.
“I think it is important to note that the bill has $715 million in new authorizations that is fully offset with $721 million in reduced mandatory spending.
“This is a very needed bill for the West and in my home state of Wyoming, and I urge the committee markup of this legislation soon, as quickly as possible.”