Members of the House Water and Power Subcommittee broke along party lines at a hearinglast month on a bill to reauthorize federal desalination research programs. H.R. 745, sponsored by Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), would authorize $3 million per year for desalination research and development efforts through 2018. The federal desalination program began in 1996 and is set to expire at the end of this fiscal year if not renewed.
Rep. Napolitano defended the proposal at the May 23 hearing, explaining that in light of ongoing water shortages in many parts of the country continued desalination research is essential “to drive down costs and be a powerful engine for economic growth.”
Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) took the opposite view and criticized federally backed desalination research as an unnecessary subsidy that benefits private businesses and water users. Despite years of research, he said, desalinated water only provides one half of one percent of U.S. water supplies and “remains the most expensive way we have yet invented to create freshwater.”
Kevin Wattier of the Long Beach Water Department testified at the hearing in support of the legislation. Wattier said that federally backed research has allowed Long Beach and others “to successfully develop technologies and processes proven to reduce the energy requirements and environmental impacts involved with desalting water.” He also explained that all the data generated through Long Beach’s desalination research “is widely available to the public for further study” – a level of cooperation that may not be available if desalination research were to be only carried out by private entities.