Vice Presidential Pool Reports of January 20, 2023

VP Local Pool #1

Good afternoon from sunny but brisk (by our standards) Los Angeles, where an event with Vice President Harris at the Tujunga Spreading Grounds will kick off soon.

Below is background provided by the Office of the Vice President, as well as featured guests.

On background from a White House Official
Today, January 20th, Vice President Harris will visit Tujunga Spreading Grounds in Los Angeles County. There, she will highlight ongoing efforts to increase drought and flood resilience. Spreading grounds played a critical role in managing the floods following recent extreme weather in the area. Her visit follows President Biden’s trip to Central California where he surveyed damage sustained from the storms and met with residents who were impacted.

Tujunga Spreading Grounds is one of 27 spreading grounds that provide water to Los Angeles County though groundwater recharge, enhancing the region’s ability to take advantage of rain fall and store it underground.

President Biden and Vice President Harris secured more than $12B dollars for western water infrastructure in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. This funding will help build diversified water projects like the Tujunga Spreading Grounds in communities across the West, increasing drought resilience and protecting water resources.

As the US Senator from California and now in the Administration, Vice President Harris has consistently elevated the impacts of drought across the West and the importance of drought resilience. Components of drought and clean water legislation the Vice President drafted as a Senator were included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Vice President highlighted the Administration’s focus on drought resilience during a trip to Lake Mead in 2021.

On Background from a White House Official:
Expected participants in the greet and the tour at Tujunga Spreading Grounds:

• The Vice President
• Assistant Secretary Tanya Trujillo, U.S. Department of the Interior
• U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA)
• Congressman Tony Cardenas (D-CA-29)
• Secretary Wade Crowfoot, California Natural Resources Agency
• Lindsey Horvath, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
• Director Mark Pestrella, Los Angeles County Public Works

VP Local pool # 2

Vice President Harris' motorcade arrived at 1:27 pm local time and she stayed at the outdoor event for roughly 25 minutes.

She spoke alongside the banks of a water basin for about three minutes, highlighting the Biden-Harris' administration's efforts to address the climate crisis via the bipartisan infrastructure bill and last year's Inflation Reduction Act.

She spoke about California's see-saw between extreme drought and the recent floods caused by multiple atmospheric rivers, saying that the two phenomena are indicative of the climate crisis as as whole.

"We must therefore understand that issues that are present in this time of crisis are varied. And it requires us to be present and to be in front of the each of the iterations and variations of extreme weather that produces a lot of water and extreme weather that produces drought."

"I'm happy to be here to highlight the work that is happening in this facility and in California as an example of what can and should be happening throughout our country and around the world," Harris said.

She said that $12 billion has been dedicated to the Western states, "to address these issues in a way that we can build up resilience and adaptation, and do the kind of work that is happening right here, which is investing in smart ways to store water so that we will have that water in times of crisis."

She was followed by California Natural Resources Sec. Wade Crowfoot, who noted that California has been hit by nine atmospheric river storms in a row.

"And through it all, the Vice presidents and the President have been a phone call away. Their leadership, their commitment have meant that we've been able to respond to these emergencies more quickly, pre-position personnel and assets. And I have to say on a personal note, the Vice President's experience as a Californian, brings so much to these challenges that we face. whether it's flood or wildfire or drought."

"We have recently pivoted from the driest three-year period since 1896 to the wettest three weeks on record. This weather whiplash is challenging us and challenging our infrastructure as never before," Crowfoot said, noting that Gov. Newsom and the California Legislature have allocated $8.6 billion for infrastructure in the last two years.

"We need to understand how to capture all of the precipitation that falls in the set of storms, like that which we just had, for extended dry periods which we continue to face. And we're focused this spring on capturing that snow melt that's coming off our mountains, and in some cases may create very high flows in our rivers. [We're] focused on how do we get that into our reservoirs, and importantly, into the ground. Where we stand right now is one of more than two dozen spreading basin. across Los Angeles that's taking stormwater that was diverted to protect communities and putting it into the ground, letting it percolate through the soils for future for future use."

"I'm optimistic in large part because of the leadership of the Biden-Harris administration. We have more funding to build infrastructure that we need to build to adapt to this weather whiplash than we have had in a generation."

The group then pivoted out of earshot of the pool for an explanation of the spreading grounds system byMark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works.

After Harris' motorcade departed, local elected officials held a brief gaggle, in which Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA0) said the back-to-back visits by President Biden and VP Harris demonstrate "a commitment to California."

I tweeted a few pics here: https://twitter.com/melmason/status/1616551521239564288?s=20&t=rGcgZu1s2...

That's a wrap for local pool, but feel free to reach out with any questions.