House Republicans took aim at an array of Obama administration regulations intended to restore salmon populations and protect water quality in California that farmers contend are instead driving them out of business.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) called yesterday's hearing of the House Natural Resources Water and Power Subcommittee, which he chairs, to spotlight regulations Republicans say are inhibiting job creation. McClintock invited a panel of witnesses -- including farm industry representatives and local water agency leaders -- to testify to the excessive regulatory burdens he hopes to alleviate.

"This subcommittee," McClintock said, "will have its hands full in meeting this obligation."

As examples of overstepping, McClintock cited plans to destroy four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River, the apportionment of limited water supplies to the California Bay-Delta ecosystem at the expense of farmers, and pesticide-protection policies that he called "unjustified."

"For many years, the central objective of our water and power policy was to create abundance -- to make the desert bloom, as the Bureau of Reclamation's founders put it," he said. "But this original mission seems to have been lost to a radical and retrograde ideology that seeks to create, maintain and ration government-induced shortages."

Democrats, led by ranking member Grace Napolitano of California, conceded that such reviews were worthwhile but defended the role of regulation in protecting against environmental degradation.

"We need to find a balance," Napolitano said. "We value our clean air. We value our clean water. And we value our public safety."

Republicans and Democrats went back and forth with witnesses over whether a steep decline in salmon populations in California were attributable to water pumping from the delta.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) argued that pumping was "one of many" stressors in the heavily populated region.

"I've been in agriculture my entire life, and I've yet to hear a farmer and rancher not complain about everything," Garamendi said. "To simply say that regulation is the problem is ignoring the fact that the problem is us. It's all of us. It's the demand for water from urban [areas]. It's the demand for water from agriculture. And it's the demand for water from all of us."

Witnesses from the farm industry testified to the long-term damage that administration water policies have wrought on agriculture. Dan Keppen, executive director of the Family Farm Alliance, said farmers were urging their children to go into other businesses even as demand for food is projected to increase.

"As a country, we have become complacent because food production has been taken for granted for too long," Keppen said.

Jon Scholl, president of the American Farmland Trust, called on the federal government to work collaboratively with farmers, rather than slapping them with new rules, paperwork and inspections. He cited progress made using USDA investments in improving conservation throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

"I firmly believe that farmers and ranchers, if engaged properly, can be the solution to all of the environmental challenges our nation faces," Scholl said.

Dick Pool, president of Pro-Troll Products, which sells salmon fishing equipment, testified to the economic devastation wrought on the fishing industry that peaked with a 2008-2009 shutdown that resulted from a sharp decline in salmon counts, which pro-environment water policies have sought to reverse.

"The economic and jobs impact of that shutdown was staggering," Pool said.

But McClintock spoke out against federal endangered species counts that ignored "huge populations" of hatchery-grown fish.