Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman said another one from Arizona.

Mr. Speaker, I want to sort of echo what you have heard, and that is a certain happiness that we were all able to move this forward together. I appreciate the chairman, but I also want to be someone who adds a little bit of a caveat that we understand the work isn't done, particularly for those of us in Arizona.

I hate to admit how old I am, but in the early nineties, I was one of those who worked on what we called our groundwater recharge district in Maricopa County. When we had excess water, particularly from the Central Arizona Project in those years, we stored it. As we look back, now 25-some years, that was somewhat revolutionary and visionary.

We will have to do things like that to meet our requirements that are part of this legislation. This legislation does not lay out every last step that those of us in Arizona must do. We are going to have to step up and meet our obligations. I think it is important that we understand there is still much more work to be done.

As that moves forward, I am going to ask that all of us, particularly those who are supporting this drought contingency plan, think creatively. Are there technologies, and are there encouragements of farming techniques, as we are doing urban construction and types of plants in our communities?

We need to now go to the next step and think what this brings our communities, particularly for those of us in the Phoenix metropolitan area who live in the desert Southwest.

I hope we get a resounding vote of approval a little while from now, and I also hope that this is the right direction. We have to keep focused. Just because we have had a big hydrological year doesn't mean that we are not going to be back having this conversation a year or 2 years from now.

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