57 



Mr. DOOLEY. Mr. Quinn, if I understand, in your written state- 

 ment, or maybe it was in your verbal statement, you said that you 

 would support the district review subject, that you also had the cri- 

 teria, plus you would have the option for an appeal. What might 

 constitute a veto? 



Mr. QuiNN. We want criteria of appeal, and we want the require- 

 ment that the districts create programs if their landowners request 

 them to. We think those three things will create a functional mech- 

 anism for transferring water. 



Mr. Nelson. I would like to point out that what we have done 

 here once 



Mr. Miller. That is not the arrangement that Mr. Nelson antici- 

 pates. 



Mr. Quinn. I guess we would like the opportunity to come to a 

 common arrangement. 



Mr. Nelson. And we would be open to that. I would like to point 

 out that we are, once again — ^this is another good example. We 

 have taken 20 percent of California's water supply and essentially 

 pointed out that we are going to deal with you differently than the 

 other 80 percent. One of the things that we have tried to do on this 

 legislation specifically with transfers is to make it more comparable 

 to the rules that other folks in the state are using to do water 

 transfers. 



Mr. Miller. Mr. Nelson, with all due respect, that is the busi- 

 ness of setting priorities. That is the business of setting priorities, 

 and the reason we are dealing with 20 percent of the state's water 

 supply is because that is the percentage that we have the authority 

 to deal with under the Central Valley Project. 



And, in fact, what you have is you have 80 percent of it locked 

 into agriculture, and the question is will it be locked into agri- 

 culture as 1906 calls for in perpetuity. Or will we be able to look 

 at agriculture at some point down the future and decide whether 

 or not that is still the nighest priority we have for 80 percent of 

 the water. We have base closures. We have companies going out of 

 business. 



The economics changes all of the time, but it is highly unlikely 

 that 32 million people are going to get up and leave this state over 

 the next decade. And much of that water goes to the sustaining of 

 human life and family income, as it does on the farm, but the ques- 

 tion of how that water will be used. 



So when you suggest that the districts should have the veto, that 

 suggests that when you get down to the terms and the conditions 

 of the contract at the end of the period, you better have the right 

 to have some discretion as to whether or not you are going to con- 

 tinue to allocate 100 percent of the water as previously used in the 

 25 years, or do you get to reevaluate California's economy and its 

 status and say, "Well, what we will do is we will give you 98 per- 

 cent," or, "We will give you 70 percent." 



That is the nature of priorities. It may be at some point that 

 there will be a great move in the state, and they will say, "We are 

 going to give every family in California 80 percent of what they 

 used last year." That is kind of what went on in the Contra Costa 

 Water District and the Metropolitan Water District and the San 

 Diego Water District. 



