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Show 5 Veneman authorized emergency grazing on CEP lands in Southern Utah. This should give Utah's ranchers some temporary relief. But due to the cyclical nature of droughts in the western United States it is important that we have a clear understanding of the causes and effects of drought in our region. This knowledge will enable the states to develop plans to weather our drought cycles. I look forward to hearing the testimony offered by our witnesses. They all have a wealth of knowledge in this area and should be very informative. At this time I would like to give Mr. Matheson some time for an opening statement, and then I will introduce our distinguished panel of witnesses. Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome everyone to Utah, as Mr. Cannon said, the second driest state in America. A decade ago, Wallace Stegner, standing on the banks of the Colorado River, which is the lifeblood of four western states, said: " Living in a desert calls, I think, for a certain humility. It does call for adaptation to the terms the country enforces." Multiple years of drought are the reason we convene this hearing. We can't fool Mother Nature. In a country that gets less than 20 inches of rain in a normal year, anything less can spell disaster. Now, the people of Utah have always understood much more clearly than the Federal Government, the scarcity and importance of water. In 1847, Mormon Church leader Brigham Young reached the Salt Lake Valley and almost immediately he put the pioneer families to work building irrigation systems, diverting streams, and taking steps to protect canyon watersheds as the source of drinking water. No group of citizens ever worked harder to ensure that the land and the settlement would survive. That accomplishment was noted and admired in the work of U. S. Government geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell. Powell spent seven years writing his 1876, " Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States- with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah." The West was big. It was diverse. It had towering peaks, deep gorges, shimmering salt flats and erupting geyers. But it had one overriding unity- the unity of a scarcity of water. Powell's running of the Colorado River made him a hero. He offered Federal leaders a blueprint for Western expansion based on good science. But he was largely ignored. Congress passed laws encouraging settlement in the West that mimicked the settlement in the East. But the West was, is and always will be a land of little rain. If the West is leading the way in planning for limited water resources, the East, South and Midwest are not far behind. Today, as drought- stricken forests burn in New Jersey, California, Utah and Colorado, there are concerns about how to manage with historically low levels of moisture as we head into summer. I want to stress about what this hearing is and what it is not. It is not a solution to the drought. What it is. . . is a start at getting us thinking and strategizing outside of the box with respect to drought issues and the Science Committee is the natural venue for that. While drought aid is important it does not get to the heart of matters. Using good science and scientific analysis, we need to answer questions such as: " How can we do a better job predicting drought cycles?" " What actions can we take to prepare for |