[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 109 (Thursday, June 22, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2234-S2235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Mr. Padilla):
S. 2202. A bill to amend the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of
2009 to authorize the modification of transferred works to increase
public benefits and other project benefits as part of extraordinary
operation and maintenance work, and for other purposes; to the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the
Restore Aging Infrastructure Now RAIN Act, which I introduced today.
Senator Alex Padilla is cosponsoring the legislation.
This bill has three purposes: No. 1, upgrade aging canals and other
facilities owned by the Bureau of Reclamation to provide environmental
and other benefits; No. 2, for the first time provide grant funding
rather than loans for Reclamation facility upgrades that provide
drinking water for disadvantaged communities; and No. 3, incentivize
agricultural and municipal irrigation districts to participate in these
projects by giving them a 15 percent discount on what they owe for
repairing the aging facilities that serve them.
Let me explain these three bill purposes in more detail. First,
Congress has appropriated $3.2 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation to
repair its aging canals, dams and other facilities. If the Federal
taxpayers are spending this much money to retool Reclamation
infrastructure for the needs of the 21st century, the Department of the
Interior should have the authority to modify the Reclamation facilities
to achieve increased environmental benefits, drinking water for
disadvantaged communities, and other project benefits.
This bill applies to Reclamation ``transferred works'' facilities,
which are operated and maintained by agricultural or municipal water
districts. The bill authorizes Reclamation to modify these transferred
works facilities when the Agency is repairing them, as long as the
modifications add no more than 25 percent of the cost of the repair
projects, or $25 million for repair projects costing less than $100
million.
In California, this could be particularly helpful for projects to
restore major Central Valley Project canals that have lost up to 60
percent of their conveyance capacity due to subsidence. These projects
are important to allow farmers to capture runoff from our increasingly
concentrated winter storms and move the water to overdrafted areas
where it is needed to recharge the local aquifers.
[[Page S2235]]
As I mentioned, the bill applies to those Reclamation facilities
known as ``transferred works,'' which are operated and maintained by
agricultural or irrigation water districts. In order to modify these
projects when they are being repaired, the Secretary must obtain the
consent of the transferred works operating entity and any individual
water district that would receive less water under the modified
project.
Many Bureau of Reclamation facilities were built for the sole purpose
of assisting agricultural water supply. This irrigation focus is
critically important in the arid West. However, as climate change
stretches western water supplies, Reclamation facilities will need to
serve multiple purposes as efficiently as possible.
There are many rural communities in the areas served by Reclamation
facilities that have dwindling water supplies. In California, many of
these communities are home to migrant farmworkers who plant and harvest
the crops that Reclamation water deliveries support.
All too often, these communities' water supplies have become
unreliable as groundwater tables drop, or drought reduces surface water
supplies for lengthy periods. Many of these communities lack the
ratepayer base and income levels to provide clean drinking water to
meet their residents' basic daily needs.
In order to meet this challenge, the bill authorizes Reclamation to
offer grants rather than loans when it modifies existing Reclamation
facilities to provide drinking water for disadvantaged communities.
Eligible communities are defined using existing precedent that their
median family income must not exceed 80 percent of the statewide median
family income.
In California, this could be particular helpful for the major canal
repair projects which are restoring the original capacity of the
Friant-Kern Canal, the California Aqueduct, and the Delta-Mendota
Canal, all of which have been damaged by subsidence. Under the bill,
Reclamation can now modify these upgraded canals to provide turnouts to
recharge the aquifers of disadvantaged communities along the canals.
As a result, when we have wet years like this past winter,
Reclamation could send some of the flood flows to help these
communities boost their local water supplies.
These project modifications can be an efficient way to assist these
disadvantaged communities; the canals already exist, works crews will
already be mobilized to repair them, and in many cases, the canals run
very near the communities that would benefit.
To make the bill work, agricultural and municipal water districts
must participate in these modifications to Reclamation facility repair
projects.
In many cases, the water providers will face disincentives to
participate in these projects. Some providers may see their benefits
reduced. All providers will have to accept significant delay in
obtaining the benefits of the restoration of these projects. It will
take significant time to modify the projects in a manner that the
providers can accept and then to conduct environmental compliance on
the proposed modification. The providers will also have to accept
modified project operations that give increased priority to public
benefits.
To offset these disincentives for water providers to participate in
modifications to projects which increase just public benefits, the bill
reduces the amount the providers have to pay for the underlying repair
projects by 15 percent. The result is that each project beneficiary
will pay 85 percent of the costs for the modified project that the
beneficiary would otherwise have been allocated.
This provision sets up a financial incentive for water providers to
support modified projects that solely increase environmental and other
public benefits without increasing water diversions or other water
supply benefits. Without this financial incentive, water providers
might be expected to frequently oppose such modification of the
projects that they rely on for water deliveries. In the case of canal
restoration projects, the agricultural water districts will receive
less water than they would have under the original canals at full
capacity if an increased amount of the water is diverted for dedicated
to disadvantaged communities or wildlife refuges. The financial
incentive is important in this context to avoid generating agricultural
water district opposition to project modifications to benefit
disadvantaged communities and wildlife refuges.
This approach is consistent with Reclamation programs like the Title
XVI and large-scale water recycling programs. These programs provide 25
percent Federal grant funding for projects that increase municipal
water supplies, even where the benefiting communities are not
disadvantaged. These grants are justified because the recycled water
programs provide both water supply and broader public benefits by
reducing pressure to divert water from often overallocated streams and
rivers. With this bill, too, the modified projects merit some Federal
grant funding because they provide a range of public benefits beyond
just regular water supply, including potentially environmental benefits
or drinking water for disadvantaged communities.
Given the inevitability of increasingly severe and lengthy droughts
as the West's climate changes, it will be essential to provide
incentives to collaborate on multibenefit projects that bring
agricultural, environmental, and urban interests together to address
the very serious challenge of maintaining sufficiently reliable water
supply for all, including disadvantaged communities. This proposed
legislation seeks to increase incentives for such needed collaboration.
I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this bill.
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