[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 109 (Thursday, June 22, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2230-S2232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. Kelly, and Ms. Sinema):
S. 2162. A bill to support water infrastructure in Reclamation
States, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the
STREAM Act, Support to Rehydrate the Environment, Agriculture and
Municipalities Act, which I am introducing today alongside my
cosponsors, Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema. This bill is
intended to help Western States upgrade their water infrastructure in
preparation for the severe droughts and weather whiplash that we have
seen the past few years and that will worsen significantly with climate
change.
If we don't take action now, it is only going to get worse. Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory scientists project that climate change
will cause a 54-percent drop in the Sierras' snowpack within the next
20 to 40 years and a 79-percent drop by the end of the century. This
change alone could be devastating for California because we absolutely
depend on this snowpack. The Sierra snowpack provides 30 percent of our
water supply and is our biggest reservoir.
For these reasons and others, we need an ``all of the above'' water
strategy, including increased water supply; incentivizing projects that
build in environmental benefits and drinking water for disadvantaged
communities, and investing in separate environmental restoration
efforts.
The bill I am introducing today helps meet this challenge in four
fundamental ways:
No. 1, it authorizes significant water supply funding that, in
combination with the bipartisan infrastructure law, would provide
California with 1.04 million additional acre-feet of water per year on
average, enough water for over 6 million people.
No. 2, it provides additional financial incentives for water supply
projects that include environmental benefits and drinking water for
disadvantaged communities.
No. 3, it reforms the congressional review process to more quickly
approve water supply projects;
No. 4, it significantly invests not only in water supply projects but
also in environmental restoration to help imperiled species adapt to
climate change.
The recent drought in the West from 2020 to 2022 illustrates why this
bill is so desperately needed.
In 2021, the drought caused the California agriculture industry to
shrink by an estimated 8,745 jobs and incur $1.2 billion in direct
costs, according to a report prepared for the California Department of
Food and Agriculture by researchers at the University of California at
Merced. Reduced water deliveries resulted in 395,000 acres of cropland
left dry and unplanted.
Counting ``spillover effects'' in the broader economy, the U.C.
Merced analysis found the total impacts were more than 14,600 lost
jobs, both full time and part time, and $1.7 billion in gross revenue
losses.
In both 2021 and 2022, homes in significant parts of the State were
at risk of running dry. In 2021, large parts of Marin and Sonoma
Counties and the Mendocino coast came very close to losing all water
supply. In 2022, much of Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Bernardino
Counties were placed under emergency orders limiting them to once-a-
week landscape irrigation, with the possibility of a complete
irrigation shutoff that was only avoided by the timely arrival of
multiple atmospheric rivers last fall.
In California, one in eight acres statewide has burned from wildfires
in the last decade, with the past 2 years being the worst on record.
The drought has been devastating to the aquatic ecosystem as well as
our forests. As just one example, the endangered winter-run Chinook
salmon depend on sufficient cold water released by Shasta Dam to rear
their offspring in the Sacramento River.
With limited water available in 2021, NOAA Fisheries models predict
that approximately 75 percent of the winter run Chinook salmon's eggs
died from elevated water temperatures. This is a species with three 1-
year age classes, and a prolonged drought could threaten the survival
of the species.
To increase drought resiliency in California and other Western
States, the bill authorizes the following funding over the next 5
years: $750 million for surface and groundwater storage projects and
supporting conveyance, including $50 million for natural water
retention and release projects; $300 million for water recycling
projects; $150 million for desalination projects; $250 million for
environmental restoration projects; and $100 million for drinking water
for disadvantaged communities.
This funding builds on the bipartisan infrastructure law's funding of
$1.15 billion for storage projects, $550 million for water recycling
projects, and $250 million for desalination projects.
The STREAM Act, in combination with the bipartisan infrastructure
law, would provide California with the Federal cost-share for
approximately 1,042,000 acre-feet per year of additional water supply,
or enough water for over 6 million people. This comes from the
following:
Enough funding for California to finally build three major off-stream
storage projects providing 370,000 acre-feet of water on average each
year: Sites Reservoir, the Los Vaqueros Expansion, and the BF Sisk
raise. In addition, the storage funding could provide an additional
55,000 acre-feet per year from some combination of other smaller
surface and groundwater storage projects like the Sacramento Regional
Groundwater Bank or Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir. All of the projects
are non-Federal projects with a 25-percent Federal cost share, with the
exception of the Federal BF Sisk Raise with a 50-percent Federal cost-
share.
Enough funding for 532,000 additional acre-feet from water recycling
projects, from the $300 million authorized in the bill plus $550
million in the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, with a 25-percent
Federal cost-share for projects.
Enough funding for approximately 85,000 additional acre-feet from the
$150 million authorized in the bill for desalination projects, plus
$250 million in the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, with a 25
percent Federal cost-share for projects.
While virtually everyone supports water recycling projects, surface
and groundwater storage projects are sometimes more controversial. I
want to point out a 2022 report from the widely respected Public Policy
Institute of California, PPIC, which relates to the benefits of
additional surface and groundwater storage as California's climate is
changing.
Many climate forecasters emphasize that as climate change
intensifies, California will get more of its precipitation in a few
large to extraordinarily large storms fueled by atmospheric rivers, and
more of the precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow. In
between the bursts of atmospheric rivers there will be longer and more
intense droughts. We have definitely seen a preview of this pattern
this year.
PPIC has studied these projections and estimated that there is
substantial water in wet years that is not needed to maintain healthy
Delta outflows but currently cannot be captured because California
lacks the infrastructure to
[[Page S2231]]
store for future dry periods. PPIC suggests that given this reality,
cost-effective storage projects in appropriate locations could help
improve California's drought resiliency.
PPIC also argues that these storage projects should be managed for
environmental flow benefits as well as water supply benefits. This bill
would help with that because Federal funding for Sites Reservoir would
help provide cold water for salmon, and Federal funding for the
expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir would provide needed water for
wildlife refuges. Regarding cold water reserves for salmon in
particular, these reserves will be critical to prevent salmon runs from
being wiped out during the potential fourth, fifth, and maybe even
sixth and seventh years of devastating droughts.
The bill's funding authorizations apply not just to California but
throughout the 17 Western States where the Bureau of Reclamation has a
presence. Many of these States have recently benefited from the Bureau
of Reclamation's storage, water recycling, and desalination programs
and/or have projects currently seeking funding from these programs,
including Arizona, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Nevada, and
New Mexico. I believe the Federal funding assistance authorized by this
bill will be particularly important for all seven Colorado River basin
States as the States negotiate the next painful round of water supply
cuts from the Colorado River between now and 2026 in order to meet the
challenge of an increasingly dry Colorado River basin.
In Arizona, the STREAM Act would significantly advance the Salt River
Project's proposal to raise Bartlett Dam on the Verde River to
counteract the loss of approximately one-third of the nearby Horseshoe
Dam's capacity from accumulating sediment.
The bill uses financial incentives to encourage storage and
conveyance projects to include environmental benefits and other public
benefits such as drinking water for disadvantaged communities. This is
important to ensure that the environment and disadvantaged communities
are included in our drought resilience strategies.
If proposed storage projects solely provide irrigation and general
municipal and industrial water supply benefits, the bill authorizes
only low-interest loans to support these projects.
In contrast, the bill authorizes grants for storage and conveyance
projects that include environmental benefits, drinking water benefits
for disadvantaged communities, or other public benefits either as part
of the project design or as part of a watershed restoration plan
adopted together with the project.
This access to grants gives project sponsors a strong financial
incentive to design environmental and disadvantaged community benefits
into their projects. This approach builds on the experience of the
Proposition 1 water bond California's voters passed by a 2-to-1 margin
in 2014, which also incentivizes projects with environmental and other
public benefits.
If storage and conveyance projects take these steps, they can get
Federal grants both directly for the public benefits and for an equal
value investment in the water supply component of the project. Thus,
the Federal Government will provide $50 million for the general water
supply benefits of a project if the project also has $50 million in
fish and wildlife or water quality benefits either directly from the
project or from an associated watershed restoration plan.
The bill not only increases funding for drought resiliency projects,
it expedites their approvals and assists them more cost-effectively,
stretching taxpayer dollars further.
The traditional Bureau of Reclamation model for approving and funding
new water supply projects has involved the following:
No. 1, reclamation studies new projects in detail, which can take a
decade or more for major projects.
No. 2, once Reclamation's studies are complete, Congress authorizes
projects individually, which can take another 3 to 5 years or longer in
many cases.
No. 3, the design and construction can take a decade or longer.
One can quickly see that this model can end up taking decades to
construct significant new water supply projects. This is especially the
case given the limitations of Federal budgets and the increasing cost
of major projects in recent years. Given the tremendous challenge posed
by climate change to western water supply, we need a nimbler and more
responsive model.
Mike Connor, the Deputy Secretary of the Interior during the Obama
Administration and currently Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil
Works, testified in support of a new model during an October 8, 2015,
hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Deputy Secretary Connor stated:
The traditional Reclamation business model, in which
feasibility studies, consistent with the 1983 Principles and
Guidelines for Water and Related Resources Development, are
first authorized, funded, and submitted to Congress, and then
construction is authorized and funded, does not always
address the needs of project sponsors at the state and local
levels. Moreover, given budget limitations and the
availability of other available financing mechanisms, the
historic Federal role in financing water storage projects
through the Bureau of Reclamation must be revisited with a
greater emphasis on non-Federal financing.
In response to the concerns articulated by then-Deputy Secretary
Connor and others, the bill we are introducing today, building on the
2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, makes two
significant changes to the traditional Reclamation model. These changes
expedite project approvals and make more cost-effective use of
available Federal funding.
First, the bill eliminates the need for Congress to authorize
individual water recycling and desalination projects and non-Federal
storage projects a Federal investment of less than $250 million. It can
take 3 to 5 years or longer for projects to get legislatively approved.
In fact, zero new water recycling projects were authorized from 2009 to
2017 despite dozens of meritorious projects with approved feasibility
studies.
Federal storage projects, which are often more controversial,
continue to require congressional authorization, as do non-Federal
storage projects with a greater than $250 million Federal investment.
The bill shortens the timeline for congressional approval of these
projects through directing Reclamation to follow a process that the
Army Corps of Engineers uses to notify Congress of completed
feasibility studies each year to set up an orderly timeline to
authorize projects.
Second, the bill no longer requires 100 percent Federal funding
upfront as was necessary under the traditional Reclamation model.
Instead, the bill allows a maximum of 50 percent Federal funding for
federally owned projects and a maximum of 25 percent Federal funding
for non-Federal projects that are built by States, water districts, or
Indian Tribes.
Federal dollars can be stretched further by the partnerships with
States and water districts that will be fostered under the bill. For
example, the proposed expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir in California
would be funded nearly 50 percent by the State of California, which has
already conditionally awarded funding, in addition to potentially 20 to
25 percent by the Federal Government and the remaining 25 to 30 percent
by water users.
Multipartner projects like the Los Vaqueros expansion frequently have
multiple benefits. For example, much of the State and Federal funding
for the Los Vaqueros expansion would go to augment the water supply of
wildlife refuges that provide essential water for migratory birds on
the Pacific flyway. These benefits would complement the project's water
supply benefits for many Bay Area water districts.
If proposed storage projects solely provide irrigation and general
municipal and industrial water supply benefits, the bill authorizes
only low-interest loans to support these projects.
In contrast, the bill authorizes grants for storage and conveyance
projects that include environmental benefits, drinking water benefits
for disadvantaged communities, or other public benefits either as part
of the project design or as part of a watershed restoration plan
adopted together with the project.
Let me give an example of how this works. If a project sponsor is
seeking $100 million in Federal funding for a $400 million non-Federal
storage project, the sponsor can get that $100 million funding as a
grant if there is
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$100 million in public benefits from either the project itself or other
projects as part of a watershed restoration plan approved with the
project.
The public benefits could be either drinking water for disadvantaged
communities or fish and wildlife benefits. Some examples of fish and
wildlife or water quality benefits from a watershed plan could include
water leasing during a dry year, water sharing agreements, water
banking, ongoing water conservation, and related activities if they
provide fish and wildlife or water quality benefits; environmental
restoration projects; and natural water retention and release projects.
The longer and more severe droughts coming with climate change will
adversely affect not just farms and cities but also the natural
environment. The bill includes provisions to improve species' drought
resiliency as well.
The significant funding authorization of $250 million for
environmental restoration can be used to benefit many different
species, including fish and migratory birds. Some authorized uses of
this funding include improved habitat for salmon, Delta smelt, and
other fish species adversely affected by the Bureau of Reclamation's
water projects; additional water for wildlife refuges hosting migratory
birds along the Pacific flyway; improved stream gauges, monitoring and
science to better understand how to restore species and to operate
Reclamation water projects with reduced environmental impacts; ensuring
that when Sacramento Valley rice growers sell their water and idle
their crops, some water is left behind and applied to bare fields in
late summer and early fall to create shallow flooded habitat during a
critical shorebird migration period; and assistance in implementing
water-related settlements with State agencies and State water quality
laws.
The bill would also authorize $50 million of the broader storage
funding for natural water retention and release projects.
These projects would help restore stream and river channels with
natural materials like wetlands. Like many other projects prioritized
by the bill, these projects could have multiple benefits, including
increased groundwater recharge, improved flood protection, and
increased floodplain habitat to benefit salmon and other species. I
look forward to receiving comments on ways to prioritize multibenefit
projects like natural water storage projects as we move forward with
the bill.
The bill also authorizes pay-for-performance environmental
restoration approaches that award grants contingent on the success of
the restoration effort. These approaches can expedite environmental
restoration and build public/private partnerships to increase the
number of acres restored.
In addition, the bill makes clear that it must be implemented
consistently with all Federal environmental laws, including the
Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the
Clean Water Act and all other environmental laws. All applicable state
laws must also be followed.
California is home to more than 40 million people, but our major
statewide water infrastructure hasn't significantly changed in the past
50 years, when we had only 16 million people.
We must modernize the system or we risk becoming a desert state.
Critically, this means putting in place infrastructure to allow our
cities, our farmers, and our natural communities to withstand the
severe droughts that we are projected to face as a result of climate
change.
I hope my western colleagues will join my cosponsors and me on this
bill because drought is a serious threat for all of our States.
______