On the House Floor
This week, the House passed H. J. Res. 20 by a margin of 286 to 140. This bill funds the federal government through the remainder of Fiscal Year 2007.
The Report is Out
On Tuesday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released its report on the updated costs and benefits of the Auburn Dam, making a convincing case for completion of the project. According to the study, an Auburn Dam would provide the Sacramento region with 500-year flood protection, while delivering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of water and power to our growing region. As a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, I felt it was important to authorize this study to call attention to the benefits our region would realize from construction of an Auburn Dam. I fully support the current improvements being made to Folsom Dam in order to increase flood protection for the area. However, as necessary as these improvements are, they will not protect Sacramento from the catastrophic flood the experts predict is coming. The only way to achieve the necessary protection is through the construction of the Auburn Dam.
Project opponents have pounced on the study’s nearly $10 billion price tag for construction, arguing that the cost makes the project unrealistic. The price tag is high, but the price of not building the Auburn Dam would prove to be even higher. If there is anything we should have learned from Hurricane Katrina it is that procrastination is not only dangerous, but it is infinitely more expensive. Waiting to fully address the region’s flood risk will undoubtedly lead to a more expensive fix. Actual construction of the dam is around $3 billion which is comparable to other regional flood control projects, but the demands of the environmental community have unfortunately pushed the overall cost up several billion dollars more. Also conveniently overlooked by anti-dam forces is the fact that the hundreds of millions of dollars generated annually through the sale of power and water would pay for the dam over time.
Contrary to what the critics would have the public believe, an Auburn Dam would also benefit the environment by providing additional water on the American River that would allow for the quick correction of water quality issues in the Delta. It would also create additional cold water and higher flows for the salmon on the American River. The Auburn Dam would also increase the region’s recreational appeal by stabilizing the lake level at the Folsom Reservoir, one of the most visited recreational sites in the State of California. In short, the study reaffirms the need for the Auburn Dam.
Warming
On the heals of a report asserting that human activity is the cause of global warming, a number of Democrats in Washington are calling for significant restrictions on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. In response, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has rightly warned against unintended consequences, such as severe job losses, that would likely result if the government mandated such caps. This is in keeping with America’s rejection of the United Nation’s Kyoto Protocol of a decade ago that would have hamstrung industrialized nations while exempting the world’s grossest polluters, including China and India, from similar restrictions. Rather than crippling U.S. industry at a time when manufacturing jobs are increasingly scarce, industry should be encouraged to reduce so-called green house gas emissions through the application of technology and a system of incentives. Only in this way can we address environmental concerns and preserve our prosperity at the same time.
Quote of the Week
“Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a recently-released 2002 letter describing the catastrophic effect that the Kyoto Protocol would have on industrialized nations.
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