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Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee successfully passed the Senate version of the Congressman’s Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) Transparency Act of 2015 by voice vote:
“Many of the facilities operated by BOR are in desperate need of repairs. Unfortunately, Congress doesn’t know what the agency’s priorities are or what needs to be fixed as Reclamation has done a poor job of compiling and reporting this information to date.
“I am pleased to see the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee take action today on the Barrasso/Gosar legislation which will resolve these issues and force the agency to get its affairs in order. Our legislation will allow for scarce federal resources to go to the most important projects and will empower states, localities and water and power users to make informed decisions.”
Background:
Congressman Gosar introduced the Bureau of Reclamation Transparency Act on February 26, 2015.
On June 25, 2015, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the Bureau of Reclamation Transparency Act. Click HERE to read more.
The full text of the Bureau of Reclamation Transparency Act can be found HERE.
The Senate unanimously approved this bipartisan bill during the 113th Congress, with Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) ushering its passage.
BOR provides essential services that benefit water and power users as well as our nation’s farmers. The agency delivers water to more than 30 million people and provides one in five Western farmers with water to irrigate their crops. BOR’s assets include more than 475 dams and dikes, and the agency is also responsible for the operations of 53 different hydroelectric power plants.
The House version of the Bureau of Reclamation Transparency Act currently has 24 cosponsor including Representatives Mark Amodei, Joe Barton, Matt Cartwright, Mike Coffman, Jeff Denham, Trent Franks, John Garamendi, Chris Gibson, Crescent Hardy, Joe Heck, Jared Huffman, Ann Kirkpatrick, Ted Lieu, Cynthia Lummis, Tom McClintock, Martha McSally, Jeff Miller, Grace Napolitano, Steve Pearce, Mark Pocan, Matt Salmon, Kyrsten Sinema, Scott Tipton and Ryan Zinke.
The Bureau of Reclamation Transparency Act would force the BOR to do an Infrastructure Needs Assessment Report every two years as part of the BOR’s existing Asset Management Plan reporting process. This Infrastructure Needs Assessment Report would be available to the public on BOR’s webpage. The report would include:
1) An itemized list of major repair and rehabilitation needs at all federally managed BOR facilities and projects.
2) A cost estimate of the expenditures needed to address those repairs.
3) A categorical safety rating, using BOR’s own existing categorical system, of the importance of addressing each item.
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