Speeches

I want to thank all of you who have worked so long and hard to make this sesquicentennial celebration of the original Yosemite Grant Act so moving. The earliest description of this valley comes to us from Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, a member of the Mariposa Battalion that pursued a band of Ahwaneechies into the valley in 1851. He wrote, "Domes, peaks, spires, and cliffs were capped with fresh snow, their walls and slopes dappled with it, marking in strong relief the various sculptured forms. Some were veiled in wisps of cloud...

Opening Statement of Chairman Tom McClintock: The Subcommittee meets today in response to urgent protests made by a wide range of state and local governments, farmers, ranchers, public land users and private land owners in response to threatened action by the EPA and the Forest Service to vastly expand their authority over water use at the expense of long established state jurisdictions, rights and prerogatives and in direct violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

We cannot demand that our people scrimp and save and stretch and ration every drop of water in their parched homes while at the same time, this government treats our remaining water supply so recklessly, so irresponsibly and so wastefully.

A few months ago, Folsom Lake was almost empty. The drought was the catalyst, but the reason was unnecessary water releases from this Dam and a lack of additional water storage upstream.