Congressman David G. Valadao Leads Request for Oversight Hearing on Biden Administration’s Anti-Science Water Grab

WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman David G. Valadao and the entire California Republican Delegation sent a formal request to the House Natural Resources Committee and the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee for an oversight hearing on the Biden administration’s decision to override career Bureau of Reclamation employees and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists to replace the operations plan that delivers water to the Central Valley.

“The House Natural Resources Committee has a responsibility to conduct oversight on what appears to be an anti-science, politically-motivated move by the Biden administration to discount years of peer-reviewed work done by career scientists and civil servants,” said Congressman Valadao. “I implore Chairman Raul Grijalva and Chairman Jared Huffman to conduct as thorough oversight on this administration’s actions at the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce as they did in the previous administration - anything else would be short of our duty as Members of Congress.”

The letter can be found here.

BACKGROUND

The request would be to find answers on the decision making that informed the proposed interim operations plan for the Central Valley Project (CVP) and the State Water Project (SWP) submitted on October 14, 2021, in the litigation challenging the 2019 biological opinions for long-term operations of the CVP and SWP and the 2020 Record of Decision on Reinitiation of Consultation on the Coordinated Long-Term Modified Operations of the CVP and SWP. The letter also requests oversight on the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce’s plans for collaboration with all stakeholders in future plans that would impact project operations.

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