38 



all the parties together to come up with mutually agreeable solu- 

 tions so that we can solve them. 



Mr. DooLiTTLE. The only consensus I am aware of occurred in 

 the Bay-Delta Accord which is a remarkable situation. I mean, do 

 you believe there is consensus? Is there another example of consen- 

 sus out there? 



Mr. QuiNN. Let me risk this answer that I believe there was con- 

 sensus — ^that there is consensus now, that the objectives of the 

 CVPIA are important and remain important. I think there is con- 

 sensus on that question. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes. I will give you that. OK 



Mr. QuiNN. And now we need to seek to find out how many peo- 

 ple we can draw to a common vision of what kind of implementa- 

 tion process is the best for achieving that common view of what we 

 need to do. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, do you believe that this bill advances the 

 process or retards it? 



Mr. QuiNN. I believe with appropriate change it could advance 

 the process. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. OK Let me ask Mr. Nelson, do we have more 

 water transfers going on since CVPIA became law or less? 



Mr. Nelson. My impression is that since CVPIA, water transfers 

 have actually been hampered. We haven't realized any transfers to 

 my recollection outside the CVPIA, and the transfers within the 

 CVPIA that used to be fairly normal and day-to-day type oper- 

 ations or within day-to-day type operations have now been much 

 more burdensome. 



And my sense is that that is one of the things — again, going back 

 to consensus, that we all have a consensus, is that we want to see 

 transfers work better than they are working now and that we do 

 want to provide opportunities for water to be transferred and for 

 people to be compensated for water that is being reallocated. So the 

 short answer is, no, CVPIA as implemented has not helped trans- 

 fers; in fact, has hindered it. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. All right. As implemented. What about as the 

 statute reads? What is contributing to the slowdown in the trans- 

 fers? 



Mr. Nelson. Well, prior to CVPIA, the criteria for transferring 

 water within the project was very simple. Essentially, it could be 

 accommodated by a few phone calls between participating districts, 

 cooperating districts, and the Bureau of Reclamation, and water 

 could be transferred from district to district very simply. With the 

 criteria in CVPIA, unfortunately, affecting those types of transfers, 

 the criteria is much more burdensome. Also the 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. Now, this is the statutory criteria you are refer- 

 ring to? 



Mr. Nelson. That is correct. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. OK. So that is going to be tough to fix adminis- 

 tratively, wouldn't you agree? 



Mr. Nelson. Yes. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. OK Mr. Beard, my time is about up. What is 

 your view of that? 



Mr. Beard. As was pointed out, we haven't had any requests for 

 transfers outside of the Central Valley Project service area as of 



