On Tuesday, the House Natural Resources Committee held a budgetary hearing in which Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Estevan Lopez provided testimony on Reclamation’s FY16 proposed budget. The drought in California was a popular topic of conversation between the Members and the Commissioner. Both Democrats and Republicans pressured the Commission to have Reclamation do more to help with the drought. Several Members of the California House Delegation pressed the Commissioner about specific actions Reclamation could take to help alleviate the impacts of the drought, such as purchasing water to help communities in the Central Valley and sending the extra water from Lake Shasta to heavily drought-impacted regions of the state.
