maintain a regular oversight role and have dedicated a sizable 

 amount of my own effort and staff resources as well as outside re- 

 sources to oversee the implementation of this Act. 



The CVPIA was enacted, as Congressman Miller has said, to 

 modernize the Central Valley Project and produce a balanced 

 project which jdelds benefits for agricultural users, for urban users, 

 for the environment, for state and local government, for commercial 

 and sport fishing, and for Native Americans. 



But H.R. 1906 I think threatens to upset that careful balance by 

 tilting the scales in the favor of agriculture and, unfortunately, re- 

 opening hostilities in what I came to learn over four or five years 

 of very intense investigation, hearing from over 100 witnesses and 

 official testimony, and hearing from hundreds of others in onfield 

 trips as well as discussions in my own office, are the longstanding 

 California water wars. And this bill endangers the fragile piece 

 that was established with its passage in 1992 and the implementa- 

 tion of the Bay-Delta standards negotiated last December. 



Mr. Chairman, before passage of the CVPIA in 1992, the Central 

 Valley Project was a project in crisis. The way it functioned was 

 a relic of an earlier era which emphasized delivery of irrigation 

 water at the expense of other interests such as the water needs of 

 urban dwellers or fish and wildlife. 



The CVPIA helped resolve that crisis by promoting water con- 

 servation. I mean, if 85 percent of the water in California is used 

 for agriculture, if you simply saved — conserved 10 percent, you 

 would double the amount of water available for commercial and 

 residential uses in the state. 



So we tried to promote water conservation. We tried to promote 

 voluntary water transfers to nonagricultural users to give them the 

 right to do that and water for fish and wildlife. At the same time, 

 the CVPIA continued to guarantee the vast majority of the water 

 of the Central Valley Project for irrigated agriculture under 25-year 

 contracts and continuing at subsidized rates. 



It is interesting just to note parenthetically that the rough sub- 

 sidy — ^the repayment is about 230 million on a $3.7 billion project 

 which amounts to a 95 percent Federal subsidy. We might have 

 nicked that down a point or two in 1992 but not much. 



Mr. Chairman, I see no reason for changes in the CVPIA and 

 that is my basic message today to the subcommittee. The Act is 

 working, and it has worked in both wet and dry years. Yesterday's 

 San Francisco Chronicle, for example, reports that California's 

 salmon population has exploded this year to legendary proportions. 

 And although this has been a very wet year, I believe a part of that 

 story is attributable to the innovations contained in the CVPLA 



According to California waterfowl experts, the four Sacramento 

 Valley wildlife refuges, allocated firm water supplies for the first 

 time under this Act, experienced a 20 percent increase in waterfowl 

 usage during the 1993-1994 water year over previous years. 



Mr. Chairman, instead of rushing to change the CVPIA, the Con- 

 gress needs to adopt a few of the old-time virtues starting with pa- 

 tience and cooperation. How can we begin unraveling a bill that is 

 less than three years old which is still in a relatively early stage 

 of implementation? 



