17 



while you continue to carve up the Treasury and carve up the 

 water of the state is an outrage. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. All right. Mr. Farr would like to be recognized 

 and is recognized. 



Mr. Farr. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am prob- 

 ably the only Califomian sitting on this committee that doesn't 

 have a major vested interest in the water from the CVPIA, But I 

 do represent a coastline, and it is interesting how the coastal com- 

 munities of California are also dependent on this because we have 

 a major fishing industry in California, and that fishing industry — 

 the salmon industry — depends on the water quality and the water 

 availability also of these same rivers. 



So there is multiple economic users of this water, and I think 

 that one of the things that we want to try to do is make sure that 

 it is sort of best management practices for everybody as expressed 

 in the Bay-Delta Accord, And my question really goes to Congress- 

 man Fazio, and I think you expressed it. 



And, Mr. Chairman, I was a little bit concerned because in your 

 opening remarks you indicated that our hearings indicated every- 

 one indicated it was not working. That is not what I heard. I heard 

 what you expressed when you introduced the bill. It says that we 

 have heard from those who expressed concerns about the way cer- 

 tain provisions of the CVPIA are being implemented and inter- 

 preted, and that some provisions of the CVPIA need modification. 



I am reading from your statement that is iii the record here. And 

 that we ought to use this bill to build on the Bay-Delta Accord. And 

 my question to Congressman Fazio is that I think you reflected in 

 your comments that the whole thing isn't broken and doesn't need 

 to be thrown out, that you need some 



Mr. Fazio. I don't think anybody here, Sam, thinks this thing 

 needs to be thrown out. There are people who are indicating that 

 that is our intent, those of us who support reforming the CVPIA. 

 That is not the bottom line here. What we are trying to do, having 

 worked with the law for two and a half years, is to make the 

 changes that reflect in some cases what we understood to be legis- 

 lative intent, and in other cases react to problems that have devel- 

 oped from the first couple of years of administration of the law. 



There is no question that the Bay-Delta Accord is something that 

 no one here is trying to destabilize. It was a hard-fought com- 

 promise, state-Federal, north-south, east-west, and we want to 

 make sure that the concepts that are included in that guide us in 

 the future. I don't think there is any attempt to throw that out, but 

 there is so much misinformation, so much arguing past each other 

 on these issues, like the disposition of the 800,000 acre feet, that 

 we have got to come to some resolution. And we have got to write 

 into law clarification, and that is why I think these hearings are 

 necessary. 



As I indicated earlier, a lot of things that happened in the last 

 round were not handled in the formsil process, and a lot of things 

 I think were interpreted differently by people. And now the rubber 

 hits the road, and we have got to clarify that. I think this is prob- 

 ably an opportunity to hear some things that were never put on the 

 record in the process of passing the bill in the last Congress. 



