Water Rights Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Chair, I want to make it clear that I was an original sponsor of this bill. Like my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), I wanted to address the 2011 directive as it affected ski resorts.

However, this bill, in markup and through the manager's amendment, became worse. We were unable to get the improvements that we needed to narrow the scope; and it became a Republican job-killing, water-grabbing bill, which was not the original intent.

Even the areas where the intent was to help the ski areas--in Summit County and Eagle County in my district, in Pitkin County in Mr. Tipton's district--the counties have all come out against this very bill.

It is a Republican water-grabbing, job-killing bill, and absent the amendment that I proposed, it is not something that I can support. I encourage my colleagues on my side of the aisle who value recreational opportunities, like fishing and white-water rafting, to join me in opposing this bill, unless the Polis amendment is incorporated into the bill.

We will soon begin a debate on that amendment. This debate would focus the actual bill to fulfill its purpose, and I hope that this body will adopt it.

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Chair, I want to be clear that the concerns are by no means limited to the Endangered Species Act. The Republicans may care about endangered species, but they don't care about jobs. The Forest Service, the BLM, Interior, and Agriculture agencies all have relevant authority with regard to bypass flows. None of those are mentioned under this particular manager's amendment.

What this manager's amendment shows is Republicans care more about endangered species than they do about jobs in our mountain resort areas. This manager's amendment added the term ``impairment of title.'' We wanted this limited to ``transfer of title'' because ``impairment of title'' actually expands the scope of the bill from the original bill. In addition, the so-called savings clause actually appears to negate the very bill that it appears in.

This takes a bill that we had offered language to the committee and to Representative Tipton to make this a bipartisan bill. I think it could have very closely unanimously passed the House, certainly enough to pass a suspension, and instead they made a bill that even the very ski areas that they are claiming to help--actually, all the counties that I have that have ski resorts actually oppose this job-killing Republican water grab bill.

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Chair, my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), mentioned the National Ski Areas Association, and I include their February 11 letter for the Record. It states here, in part:

However, to make it abundantly clear that ski areas have a narrow and pointed agenda with respect to this legislation and that we are committed to maintaining stream and aquatic species health, we are now advocating changes to the bill to narrow its scope even further. These changes include narrowing the scope of the bill to apply just to the U.S. Forest Service, and clarifying that the bill prohibits forced transfers of ownership of water rights to the United States by inserting the term ``title'' into the bill.

I believe that my amendment is consistent with the position of the National Ski Areas Association.

I am a strong believer in the original purpose of this bill. Yes, the U.S. Forest Service overstepped its authority by issuing a policy that requires ski area permittees to transfer ownership of their water rights to the Federal Government.

Ski areas are the lifeblood of our mountain communities in Colorado and many communities across the Nation. Their economic viability and strength is extraordinarily important for working families. Ski areas have invested hundreds of millions of dollars of capital, and they can't be simply required to hand over their water rights to the Federal Government. This harmful policy hinders ski resort growth and expansion and harms the economy. My amendment fixes it.

There is a legitimate issue here, and Congress could be solving it in a bipartisan manner. We agree that the 2011 U.S. Forest Service directive is a problem. This could have been a suspension bill, but H.R. 3189, despite our best efforts from my side of the aisle, does not reflect a bipartisan agreement to the water rights issue.

There is not one comparable Federal water rights directive like the U.S. Forest Service directive, but the Republicans couldn't help themselves here, and they have, instead of fixing an issue, created a job-killing, water-grabbing Republican bill that will destroy jobs in Colorado and in mountain resorts across the country.

This process has become convoluted and the bill overly broad. This legislation only serves to cast doubt on the complicated laws and precedents and authorities that make up our Nation's and States' water laws, and that it is critical to remain stable and predictable over time. This expansive legislation undermines jobs and recreational opportunities, from white-water rafting to fishing. Sportsmen's groups oppose this legislation. Ski counties in my district oppose this legislation.

It was brought up in committee yesterday, could the opposition be ``political.'' Well, I want to be clear, one of the ski counties in my district, all three of the commissioners are Republican. Grand County, they oppose this bill unanimously, as do Summit County and Eagle County. Rafting and paddling groups oppose this legislation because it impacts our world-class, white-water runs.

I hope we can fix this bill. We have tried hard throughout this process to offer language in the committee that would make this a bipartisan bill, to offer language to the chief sponsor, Representative Tipton. Up to this point, we have been rebuffed. This is our last hope to fix this bill and create something that actually responds to the flawed Forest Service directive of 2011. Without this change, this bill has nothing to do with the 2011 directive. It is just talk. It doesn't even respond to the issue it is designed to solve, which is why some of the very same ski communities that wanted a response to the 2011 directive don't even support this bill at this point.

Since ski area water rights are a valuable asset that need to be protected, I am proud to have offered this amendment with Representative Kuster, Representative DeGette, Representative Perlmutter, Representative DelBene, Representative Cartwright, and Representative Huffman that would fix H.R. 3189, return the bill to its original purpose, lead to a strong House vote, and ensure that any U.S. Forest Service directive will not condition ski area permits on the transfer of title of any water right or require any ski area permittee to acquire a water right in the name of the United States.

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Ski area water rights are valuable assets that must be protected. Rather than disguise that in a catchall Republican job-killing water-grabbing bill, we have the opportunity through the Polis-DeGette-Perlmutter-DelBene-Kuster-Cartwright-Huffman amendment for this House to come together around something that helps the economy grow in our ski resort areas across the country.

As so many times on issues of even greater importance, there is a fork in the road for this House, a decision to make, between the partisan-charged route of job-destroying Republican water-grabbing legislation or the opportunity to fix this bill and come together to make sure that our ski resort communities are secure in their water rights and can continue to justify their capital investments and grow. That is the choice we have with the Polis amendment.

This amendment improves the bill. It helps turn the bill from a controversial bill into something that I think the vast majority of this body can and will agree on.

The amendment ensures that any U.S. Forest Service directive will not condition ski area permits on the transfer of title of any water right or require any ski area permittee to acquire a water right in the name of the United States.

That is the issue from the directive on 2011 that gives us a reason to even have the bill; but instead of addressing that issue in a focused way, this bill has tried to essentially rewrite centuries of water law in a superficial 2-page bill that has the impact of destroying jobs in Colorado and other mountain resort communities across the country.

We can and we must do better--better for my district in Colorado. Many of the ski resort counties--like Pitkin County represented by Mr. Tipton, and Eagle, Summit, and Grand Counties that I represent--that benefit directly from the ski resort economy have come out opposed to this bill because it actually hurts their economy rather than helps it.

If the very folks that this bill was supposedly written to help oppose this bill, what on Earth are we doing here?

Thankfully, we have an amendment right now that can fix this bill. We tried in committee, we tried through the manager's amendment, and now, we are trying on the floor. Let's do it. Let's fix the bill.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and, unless it is incorporated, oppose the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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