Hageman, Harriet M.: The Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries will come to order. Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome members, witnesses, and our guests in the audience to today's hearing. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. Under Committee Rule 4F, any oral opening statements at hearings are limited to the chair and the ranking member. I therefore ask unanimous consent that all other members' opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they are submitted in accordance with Committee Rule 3.0. Without objection, so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent that the congressman from Nebraska, Mr. Smith, be allowed to participate in today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered. We are here today to hold an oversight hearing titled, The Federal Reclamation Programs, Next Century. I now recognize myself for a five-minute opening statement. Today, the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries will examine the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure in the West. Beginning in 1902, the Bureau of Reclamation has transformed the American West, providing essential irrigation water for millions of acres of farmland, generating clean hydroelectric power, and securing reliable water supplies for small and large municipalities alike. After having been in place for more than a century in some cases, we continue to rely on these projects to deliver water, power the West, and feed the nation. It is now our responsibility to build new systems while also maintaining the existing ones for maximum operational benefit and to ensure that our Federal Reclamation Programs, Next Century, is just as impactful. Numerous reclamation projects and facilities have now exceeded their expected lives, with many of these structures exceeding 100 years old. We must dedicate adequate resources to keeping these systems operating while also eliminating those barriers that prevent the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure, including dams, canals, laterals, headgates, hydropower facilities, et cetera. We simply cannot continue to allow for the slow degradation of these facilities as endless permitting and failing bureaucracy stands in the way. We saw these failures play out during implementation of the so-called Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided $8.3 billion for reclamation, including $3.2 billion to address aging infrastructure between fiscal years 2021 and 2026. While many worthwhile projects received funding, the law also had a massive inflationary effect, driving up costs for much of reclamation's construction portfolio. As of 2023, reclamation's 30-year funding needs for major rehabilitation and replacement projects was at $20.3 billion. As of 2025, toward the end of the program, that need grew to almost $25 billion. We must do better. The speed at which many of the reclamation's initial projects were completed is nothing short of extraordinary. Hoover Dam was constructed in just under five years and two years ahead of schedule. Likewise, in my home state of Wyoming, two of our major reclamation projects, Pathfinder Dam and Buffalo Bill Dam, were also completed in under five years. Unfortunately, the breakneck pace for building and innovation that we were able to attain over 100 years ago has now become a relic of the past with a permitting doom loop now hindering even the smallest and most necessary of projects. Today, federal projects face endless permitting processes, legal hurdles and bureaucratic bottlenecks. Meaning projects often spend years, if not decades, trapped in planning gridlock, all while the infrastructure itself continues to degrade with the downward spiral escalating with each passing year. Take the BF CISC Dam Raise and Reservoir Expansion Project, which seeks to add 130,000 acre-feet of storage to an existing reservoir in California's Central Valley. Enough water to supply nearly 400,000 homes annually. Initiated in 2007, the project languished in a 12-year bureaucratic loop just to clear environmental and feasibility reviews. The physical construction isn't slated to begin until 2028. Fortunately, under Secretary Burgum's leadership, this project is finally accelerating. But the permitting quagmire isn't the only barrier to maintaining our water facilities. The hallmark of modern infrastructure development is litigation. The threat of litigation drives the paralysis by analysis approach to planning projects and frivolous litigation against worthy projects stops them in their tracks. These days have real costs that are ultimately borne by reclamations, water and power customers, as well as the American people as a whole. As prolonged drought continues to stress local communities, farmers and electricity suppliers, each year trapped in bureaucratic gridlock is a year of missed opportunity to capture, store, and deliver water. While many of today's witnesses will highlight this stark reality that so many of our farmers and communities are facing, they will also underscore ways in which we can streamline permitting and procurement processes to restore efficiency to project construction and ensure that our water resources aren't wasted. I commend the Trump administration's recent steps to accelerate federal procurement processes. In particular, Secretarial Order 3446 will streamline the federal procurement process by allowing qualified entities to assume greater responsibility for managing construction and maintenance contracts at reclamation facilities, while maintaining proper oversight and accountability. I want to take a moment to thank Scott Cameron, Reclamation's Acting Commissioner, for joining us today to discuss the work the Bureau is doing to deliver on these priorities. We must invest in water infrastructure and eliminate the barriers to construction and reconstruction of federal water projects. If we fail to prioritize this work, catastrophic failures, like the Potomac Interceptor Collapse, which released 243 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River earlier this year, will become far more common. We cannot afford to let disasters like this become the new normal. With that, I want to thank all of our witnesses for flying all the way to Washington to discuss this important topic today, and I look forward to a robust conversation. I now recognize the Chair of the Committee, or excuse me, the Ranking Member of the Committee, Mr. Huffman, for five minutes.