Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

3 days ago

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

3 days ago

In Win for Trump, US Supreme Court Limits Judges’ Power to Block Birthright Citizenship Order

3 days ago

California’s Newsom Sues Fox News for $787 Million for Defamation Over Trump Call

3 days ago

Motorcycle Collides With Tractor in Fatal Fresno County Collision

3 days ago

Fourth of July Celebrations Begin Saturday. Here’s Your Fresno Area Guide

3 days ago

Bill Moyers, Broadcaster and LBJ’s White House Press Secretary, Dies at 91

4 days ago

State Department Approves $30 Million for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

4 days ago

Cargo Ship That Caught Fire Carrying Electric Vehicles Sinks in the Pacific

4 days ago

4 Million Acres of California Forests Could Lose Protection. What Trump’s ‘Roadless Rule’ Repeal Could Do

5 days ago
Commentary: New Water Deal Isn't a Political Certainty
By admin
Published 7 years ago on
December 6, 2018

Share

Water supply is clearly the most important long-term issue affecting California’s future. It’s also the most politically complicated.


Opinion
by Dan Walters
CALmatters Commentary

Incremental changes in California water policy typically take years, if not decades, to work their way through seemingly infinite legal, regulatory and political processes at federal, state and local levels – and the conflicts often are over the processes themselves.
Incremental changes in California water policy typically take years, if not decades, to work their way through seemingly infinite legal, regulatory and political processes at federal, state and local levels.
Often, too, seeming breakthroughs on specific conflicts crumble into dust once they are revealed to the hundreds of “stakeholders.”
Given that history, one should view somewhat skeptically last week’s announcement of a bipartisan, state-federal agreement on one key piece of the water puzzle.
Two top Democratic officials, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Jerry Brown, along with Congressman Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican and GOP floor leader of the House, support an extension of the two-year-old Water Infrastructure for Improvements for the Nation (WIN) Act, aimed at resolving a conflict over water flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Demanding That Farmers Use Less Water

Brown’s State Water Resources Control Board has been demanding that farmers along the lower San Joaquin River and its tributaries use less water so that more can flow through the Delta to enhance habitat for fish and other species.
Using the pending board order as a political club, Brown wants the farmers to voluntarily improve habitat restoration so that the diversions into the Delta could be eased.
However, the Donald Trump administration simultaneously has been pushing to give more water to farmers and, inferentially, send less through the Delta, offsetting federal court orders that have reduced agricultural supplies.
The WIN Act extension would, at least in theory, make restoration easier and make farmers’ water deliveries more predictable. It also would provide more than $670 million in federal funds for water storage projects that farmers and other water interests have been demanding to increase supply.
While Feinstein, Brown and McCarthy are supporting the deal, it still must pass muster with the rest of Congress and, most importantly, get Trump’s blessing.
Neither is guaranteed – if for no other reason than it’s being attached to a broader spending bill that’s hung up over Trump’s demand for money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Environmental Groups Dislike the Proposal

Environmental groups dislike the proposal, seeing it as a backdoor way of reducing Delta flows and/or a way of expediting one of Brown’s pet projects, twin tunnels that would divert Sacramento River water under the Delta, rather than through it.

Environmental groups dislike the proposal, seeing it as a backdoor way of reducing Delta flows and/or a way of expediting one of Brown’s pet projects, twin tunnels that would divert Sacramento River water under the Delta, rather than through it.
Brown told reporters a couple of weeks ago that he wants a comprehensive water deal before leaving office – implicitly one that would clear away potentially toxic opposition to the $20 billion tunnel project that would be the last big piece of the State Water Plan his father, Pat Brown, launched nearly 60 years ago.
The Feinstein-Brown-McCarthy agreement would be an important component of such a deal, but time is quickly running out in Washington with McCarthy’s Republicans about to cede House control to the Democrats, and in Sacramento, where Brown has just a few weeks remaining in his governorship.
It’s a game of political chicken. Implicitly, Brown is telling farmers to make a deal with him rather than take their chances on his successor, Gavin Newsom, who might not be as willing, and on a water board that’s poised, with strong support from environmental groups, to shift a lot of their water from fields into the Delta.
CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

DON'T MISS

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

DON'T MISS

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

DON'T MISS

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

DON'T MISS

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

DON'T MISS

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

DON'T MISS

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

DON'T MISS

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

DON'T MISS

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

DON'T MISS

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

UP NEXT

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

UP NEXT

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

UP NEXT

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

UP NEXT

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

UP NEXT

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

UP NEXT

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

UP NEXT

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

UP NEXT

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

UP NEXT

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

UP NEXT

Fresno Unified Trustees Will Get Automatic Raises on Tuesday

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

2 days ago

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

2 days ago

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

2 days ago

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

3 days ago

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

3 days ago

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

3 days ago

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

3 days ago

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

3 days ago

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

3 days ago

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

3 days ago

US Supreme Court to Hear Republican Challenge to ‘Coordinated’ Campaign Spending Curbs

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a Republican-led challenge on free speech grounds to a provision of feder...

17 seconds ago

FILE PHOTO: Republican Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance celebrates as he declares victory in his U.S. Senate race with his wife Usha at his side during his 2022 U.S. midterm elections night party in Columbus, Ohio, U.S., November 8, 2022. (Reuters File)
17 seconds ago

US Supreme Court to Hear Republican Challenge to ‘Coordinated’ Campaign Spending Curbs

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Democratic Republic of the Congo's Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. (Reuters File)
4 minutes ago

Trump to Sign Order Related to Syria Sanctions Easing, CBS News Reports

2022 Election Rally for Netanyahu
2 days ago

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

University of Virginia President James Ryan Resigns
2 days ago

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

2 days ago

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

Zohran Mamdani Speaks to Supporters
2 days ago

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

American Flag Revolver
3 days ago

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

Rob_Bonta_Speaking_At_Press_Conference_1280x720
3 days ago

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend