The Banks Pumping Plant looking toward the Bay Delta, where tunnels are planned that could protect fish. Photo courtesy of www.hcn.org

California taxpayers may be liable for picking up part of the $15 billion cost of the proposed Delta tunnels project, an economist warned at a legislative hearing last week.

The project consists of two 40-foot diameter, 30-mile-long pipes transferring water from the Sacramento River in the north Delta to pumping plants in the south Delta. From there the water is pumped to San Joaquin Valley farms and southern California homes and businesses.

Where Will Funding Come From?

One quarter of the project’s cost is expected to be provided by a $60 annual rate increase on Southern California water users, according to Dr. Jeffrey Michael, director of the Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific.

The rest of the cost is planned to be provided by Central Valley farmers. The problem for those farmers is that the upfront costs for tunnel construction would total about $160,000 per acre, Michael told the Senate Select Committee on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on Aug. 18.

“That’s multiples above the value of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley,” he said. “Even great almond orchards with a reliable supply don’t rate anywhere near that amount. Worse yet, one of the financial problems with tunnels are drought years. When you get into an extended drought and the tunnels aren’t producing any additional water for the farmers, they are already financially constrained … yet they have to come up with $1 billion a year or more in debt service payments.

Michael continued, “I don’t see any way how it’s viable without some sort of taxpayer subsidy or backing.”

True Project Cost

If there is a taxpayer subsidy, it could be expensive. Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, warned that the estimated $15 billion price tag could be as high as $70 billion by the time the project is finished. “We know that it’s going to go over projected amounts,” he said.

Legislative analyst Rachel Ehlers told the committee that the Legislature should be concerned about the state having to financially support the project, which has been dubbed the California WaterFix.

“The administration is envisioning that water contractors will pay for the bulk of costs for constructing the WaterFix,” she said. “But are we sure those contract terms protect the state from any cost overruns? Are there other costs that could materialize? What about costs for ecosystem restoration related to the proposed tunnels or other conditions in the Delta? How will this interact with state responsibilities for that?

“So [you should be] thinking about where the funding might come from and what risks there may be to the state. It’s important for the lawyers to get in the weeds for that to make sure that the state is protected.”

Strong opposition

The informational committee hearing was designed to answer the question, “Are the tunnels good for California?” But, unlike most legislative informational hearings in which panels of witnesses testify for and against an issue, there was only one panel at last week’s hearing. And all of the witnesses, along with the Delta and Bay Area legislators and audience speakers at the hearing, were opposed to the tunnels project.

Their concern is that the taking of water from the north Delta would result in decreased water flows to the heart of the Delta, resulting in further damage to an already fragile and unhealthy ecosystem and increased salinity in the drinking and irrigation water for about 500,000 Delta residents.

They are not mollified by assurances from state officials that the tunnels project would actually improve conditions in the Delta.

Defending the project

“We can’t just cross our fingers, hoping for the best in the Delta,” said Gov. Jerry Brown in an April 30 press release. “Fish populations are at an all-time low. Bold action is imperative. We’ve listened to the public and carefully studied the science. This revised plan is the absolute best path forward.”

The tunnels project will “accelerate restoration of the Delta’s ecosystem and fix the state’s aging water infrastructure,” the press release said. “The revised plan substantially improves the health of California’s fisheries, increases water reliability and addresses the uncertainty of climate change.”

The tunnels project does include 30,000 acres of Delta habitat restoration along with another 16,000 acres of habitat mitigation related to the tunnel construction. But that’s a significant decrease from the 150,000 acres in habitat restoration that had been planned in a previous incarnation of the project. In addition, a previous 50-year habitat preservation commitment has been eliminated due to uncertainties such as the potential impacts of climate change.

A Delicate Ecosystem

An environmental scientist, Dr. Christina Swanson, former president of the western division of the American Fisheries Society, told the committee that reducing the freshwater flow in the Delta would exacerbate an already disastrous situation for the ecosystem.

“The ecosystem is highly degraded,” she said. “And virtually all of the native fish populations, particularly those that live in open water habitats, are declining and have been declining for decades to either record low levels or near record low levels. This includes delta smelt, longfin smelt, split-tails, starry flounder. So we definitely have a problem here.

 

“The primary cause, because it’s the primary physical and ecological driver in this estuary and ecosystem, is the alteration and large scale reduction in freshwater flows that flow into the Delta, through the Delta and out of the Delta into the estuary. That reduction is largely the result of man-made water management operations, storage on the rivers and diversion from the rivers and in the Delta.”

Alternative Plan

Craig Wilson, the state’s first Delta Watermaster and a former attorney for the State Water Resources Control Board, proposed an alternative to the tunnels project. It would take water from the west Delta, resulting in shorter tunnels, combined with a gate that could be closed if the Delta water became too salty or contaminated along with a desalination facility.

Wilson said that “the present conveyance system is the worst of both worlds. It is not very efficient in moving water from the north to the south, and it’s been very destructive.”

But he also doesn’t think the tunnels project is the solution. “I agree that the $15 billion price tag is grossly understated when you think about the amount of material that has to be excavated and put somewhere. Most of the benefits to the tunnels accrue to the exporters to the south and not the other parts of the state, the Delta and others.”

The only person at the hearing representing southern California water users was Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, whose district includes parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“Southern California is looking for reducing our dependence on the Delta to the maximum extent possible,” she said. “We are heavily investing in recycled water.”

Sacramento County Supervisor Don Nottoli, who is the former chair of the Delta Protection Commission, responded that the Delta levees could be upgraded for $2-4 billion, much less cost than the tunnels project.

“That investment over time could not only armor the system in a way that is environmentally friendly, but also [help] on the climate change aspect of it because you can raise levees over time,” he said. “There’s a viable way to do it. It won’t happen overnight, but much more quickly than if you were to build a tunnel.”

Too Little, Too Late?

It remains to be seen whether last week’s anti-tunnels hearing and the alternative Delta improvement proposals will prove to be too little, too late. But they definitely are as far as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is concerned. That district, which provides water for nearly 19 million people in six counties, is eager to get the tunnels project moving.

“We are reaching the end of a long, winding road,” said MWD General Manger Jeffrey Kightlinger in a July 9 press release. “Metropolitan and other public water agencies have invested nearly a quarter billion dollars in this process because California simply had no other plan to reliably deliver water to two-thirds of California and to restore the Delta.

“Today represents the last planning milestone before producing a final plan for Metropolitan and the other agencies to consider. We applaud the bold leadership of Governor Brown in pursuing this necessary project. A million hours of planning must result in a final plan that is good for the California economy and environment. Everyone loses with the continued status quo.”

The press release was issued upon the recirculation of the environmental impact report for the tunnels project, which has been designated as Alternative 4A. The public comment period on that report has been extended to Oct. 30.

“The two-month extension gives the public, government agencies, and independent scientists more time to consider refinements and changes made since last summer to the plan that seeks to secure California’s water supplies and improve ecosystem conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” said a Department of Water Resources press release.

“The Delta is the West Coast’s largest estuary and is the hub of the state’s water distribution system. It provides water to 25 million of California’s 38 million residents and 3 million of roughly 9 million irrigated acres of farmland. The Delta also harbors several threatened and endangered species.”

Comments should be emailed to BDCPComments@icfi.com.

Christian Schnettelker | http://www.manoftaste.de/

At least one closely split Supreme Court decision seems likely to meet widespread acclaim this term. A 5-4 majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, sided with a California raisin grower challenging a New Deal law that had enabled government agriculture regulators to lay claim to roughly one-third of his crop.

Perverse incentives

The logic behind the Draconian rule traced back to a Depression-era scheme to prevent growers from creating a run on key commodities by slashing prices. Under the regulation, growers were allowed in effect to collude formally on setting prices, with the government stepping in to remove whatever amount of the product therefore couldn’t be sold. “The raisin board had the support of most growers, and its ‘marketing orders’ had the backing of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” as the Los Angeles Times reported.

“The USDA defended the board and said these collective actions helped to stabilize the market and prevent sharp swings in prices. The ‘reserve’ portion of the crop is sometimes sold overseas or is given to schools as part of the school lunch program. Government lawyers said growers like Horne benefited in the end because they obtained higher prices for raisins sold on the open market.”

But as Chief Justice Roberts observed, the transfer of “actual raisins” from aggrieved Fresno grower Marvin Horne constituted a “clear physical taking,” necessitating the “just compensation” provided for so-called “takings” by the Fifth Amendment. The justices agreed almost unanimously that takings applied as much to raisins as to real property. But the court’s four more liberal judges refused to agree that they could decide that Horne merited payback during the years he bucked the system. Marvin and Laura Horne, his wife, first put their feet down in 2003; “when the raisin committee voted to set aside 47 percent of the growers’ crop, the Hornes balked, selling 100 percent of their raisins,” NPR recounted. “The federal government fined them the market value of the missing raisins — nearly $500,000 — plus an additional civil penalty of $200,000.” That fine, the court ruled, also had to go.

Big reverberations

Horne’s victory teed up substantial changes in the agriculture industry and beyond. “While part of a long-running challenge to federal regulation of various agricultural markets, the ruling Monday also broadens the government’s responsibilities to private property owners,” McClatchy reported. Marketing orders like the one Horne defied “cover crops from almonds to walnuts,” observed McClatchy, although not all actually “authorize volume control.” Reflecting the arbitrary character of the regulations, other affected crops would include dried prunes, spearmint oil and tart cherries, according to the Wall Street Journal. But the immediate impact could be minimal; dates, for instance, haven’t been subject to seizures like the one affecting Horne since the 1970-71 season, the Journal noted.

The political implications of the ruling, at least, quickly became clear: more jockeying over the federal government’s well-known largesse toward so-called “big ag.” Editorializing in favor of the ruling, the Washington Post framed the stakes starkly. “Today, the Supreme Court deregulated the raisins; it’s up to Congress to liberate sugar, milk, corn, soybeans and all the other commodities still entangled in an outmoded web of regulations and corporate welfare.”

An unprecedented offer

The latest cascade of cuts underscored fears that current rationing rules just weren’t enough to put residents on a viable path to resource security. “This week, a group of farmers who enjoyed a so-called riparian right to as much water as they needed from the San Joaquin River sought to strike a bargain with state officials,” the Washington Post reported. “They would voluntarily cut the amount they use by 25 percent in exchange for keeping the remaining 75 percent for irrigation, even as the drought continues.”

That put the ball in the hands of the head of the State Water Resources Control Board, who has final say over whether the deal goes through.

Pre-existing conservation efforts were surpassed recently by municipal decreases mandated by Gov. Jerry Brown. But Brown had opted against extending similarly harsh measures to California’s big agricultural operations, responsible for producing the overwhelming national and worldwide majority of key crops like pistachios, avocados and other popular produce. That led to calls of favoritism — not just toward farming corporations, but toward the venerable water rights that Golden State farms have held tight to for generations.

A new ‘water war’

The combination of political pressure and drought conditions appeared to have an effect on regulators. As the Associated Press reported, a second group of riparian rights-holders has found itself in the conservation crosshairs:

“State officials said Wednesday that they would start mandatory cuts this week to the state’s oldest rights holders, who are historically spared from water restrictions.

“Regulators said the first orders Friday will affect those holding century-old water rights in the watershed of the San Joaquin River, which runs from the Sierra Nevada mountains to San Francisco Bay and is one of the main water sources for farms and communities.”

The farmers volunteering their cuts, with land stretched along the waterways of the Bay’s Delta region, likely saw the move as an indication that time was running out to negotiate an agreement of their own.

But the farmers facing mandated cuts, handed down by the Water Resources Control Board, announced their intention to fight the decision. Although chairwoman Felicia Marcus lamented she had to “make terrible choices in the most fair and equitable way possible,” Slate observed, the farmers “have already vowed to challenge the decision in court, saying any restriction of senior rights amounts to a ‘water war.'”

“More cuts could still be on the way, too,” added Slate. “The Water Resources Control Board says that essentially all water rights statewide are up for review this year, regardless of seniority” — and that climate change, as Marcus claimed recently, makes such sweeping changes inevitable anyway.

When the wells run dry

Howls of protest have also accompanied the latest crackdown on groundwater, which includes residential users. Under the reforms recently enacted by Gov. Brown, individuals needn’t document their use of groundwater. But, as CNBC reported, “the regional guidelines mean communities at least collectively have to account for how much groundwater they’re extracting. And that likely means more well metering on the horizon.”

At the same time, a separate controversy has swirled around just how distressed California’s well water really is. According to the Los Angeles Times, “The Department of Water Resources estimates that there are between 1 million and 2 million wells — either in use or idle — scattered throughout the state. On average, between 10,000 and 15,000 wells are added each year. Some are dug by hand, others are drilled to significant depths.” By that measure, the 1,900 wells that have gone dry amount to less than 1 percent of the total.

But the story has grown more complicated. As the Times noted, “the data show decreases of more than 10 feet in more than 15 percent of measured wells and some severe decreases of more than 25 feet in some central California wells. And state officials say several groundwater basins in the Central Coast and Southern California also show ‘significant to severe’ levels of decline.” Given the dramatic expansion of new conservation rules over the past several months, further action on groundwater would only fit the pattern.

At Bloomberg View, for instance, the editors made a splash with a recommendation drawn from Australia’s approach to limited water. “The system sets an annual cap on the amount of water that can be used without threatening future supply, then breaks that amount into entitlements for different users, which they can trade, temporarily or permanently,” they wrote.

“California, like most other U.S. states, also lets farmers buy and sell their water rights, to each other or to cities. But the transactions are not supported by a transparent online marketplace (though laws passed last year will help track water use). And they’re bogged down by red tape and other costs. The volume of trading shows it. From 2006 to 2010, agricultural districts or urban water utilities bought only about 3 percent of the water used in California’s San Joaquin Valley, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.”

Tilting the policy balance

In some ways, the creation of formal water market in California would be reminiscent of the cap-and-trade regime already well underway in pricing carbon emissions. That has raised questions about the level of complexity involved in taking on the project.

As one carbon trading expert has indicated, Californians can and do already trade water, but not within the sort of Australian-style system sophisticated enough to address water allocations at the statewide level. “It’s the equivalent of someone driving around and talking to ranchers and asking them if they want to sell their water,” McKenzie Funk told NPR. “To have this sort of hyper-efficient, computer-driven water market I think could help if it sends a price signal. But to set it up would be a mess.”

On the other hand, some observers noted, more efficient water markets could be opened up simply by stripping away the favoritism embedded in current regulations, rather than adding layers of new policy.

Water pricing in California has long been shaped by regulatory distortions. As Shikha Dalmia noted at The Week, “Although residential users pay more for water than farmers, they still pay below-market prices. Sacramento homes pay a flat rate for their water, no matter how much they consume. They don’t even have meters. In Fresno, which gets less than 11 inches of rain a year, monthly water bills for families are sometimes only a third of those in Boston, which gets four times more rain.”

Meanwhile, agricultural users have enjoyed cut-rate water for decades. Writing in favor of water markets at the Sacramento Bee, Lawrence McQuillan and Aaron White cast blame at “California’s 1930s federal Central Valley Project and 1960s State Water Project,” which “provide water to contractors at heavily subsidized prices. Farmers in parts of California are consuming subsidized water at $20 per acre-foot that is worth more than $2,000 per acre-foot in urban areas.”

Although Dalmia agreed that shifting “overnight” to full market pricing was “probably not doable,” she argued that California’s biggest water users, who benefit the most from market distortions, should bear the biggest cuts in the interim.

Tweaking taxes

As policymakers puzzle over California’s pricing regime, some proposed solutions have muddied once-reliable partisan lines on issues as fundamental as tax policy. At National Review, for instance, two co-authors recently made the case for slapping a special water inefficiency tax on organic farmers. The logic, wrote Terry Anderson and Henry Miller, is that “organic agriculture uses more of critical inputs — labor, land and water — than conventional agriculture. Taxation would reduce the demand for water-wasting organic products relative to non-organic alternatives, and thereby reduce some of the pressure on California’s dwindling water supplies.”

With few, if any, policy analysts pushing for a hands-off approach to California’s water woes, prospects for fresh legislation amid the state’s ongoing drought seemed set to brighten.

Senate Bill 25, authored by outgoing Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, passed the Senate and Assembly along party lines. Yesterday it was enrolled and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature. There’s no indication yet what he’ll do.

It allows either side in an agricultural labor dispute to enforce a state-written labor contract even when the other side is appealing it. The only exception is if the appellant can demonstrate by “clear and convincing evidence” that there would be irreparable harm from enforcing the contract and that the appeal would likely succeed.

One of SB25’s fiercest opponents is Dan Gerawan, whose Gerawan Farming has battled the United Farm Workers Union off and on for nearly a quarter century. His Fresno-based company is one of the state’s largest producers of peaches, plums, apricots and table grapes, employing about 5,000 workers during the peak harvest season.

Gerawan believes SB25 is aimed at his company, forcing it to immediately abide by a labor contract that was written by a state mediator after the company failed to come to an agreement with the UFW.

“Our labor contract is written by the state of California,” he said. “That is extreme enough that something like that even exists. Now with SB25 that so-called labor contract is implemented even without judicial review.”

Calculated pro-labor power play

Steinberg acknowledges that his bill is intended to empower unions like the UFW in labor disputes with agricultural companies.

“I think inherent in the dispute here is how one views the balance of power,” he told the Assembly Judiciary Committee July 2, 2013. “We honor Cesar Chavez with a state holiday. He is a hero to most Californians.

“We celebrate his life in large part because there is an inherent imbalance between large, powerful employers and poor farm workers. A poor worker doesn’t have the ability to assert himself alone. But with the power of the collective, of the union, they have that ability to be an equal and countervailing force to the employer.”

But there’s a question whether the Gerawan workers want to be represented by the UFW, which would collect 3 percent of their paycheck in union dues; and whether they want to be forced to abide by the state-mediated contract.

The company, which markets itself under the Prima brand, touts on its website that its wages exceed the industry average with an $11 per hour base rate for field workers, while grape packers exceed $15 per hour on average.

Benefits for workers exceeding 1,200 hours per year include vacation and retirement pay. Other benefits include paid compensation for the Latino workers who want to take English classes, and tuition reimbursement and student loans for employees’ children.

“The workers are net losers under this ‘agreement,’ as the 3 percent dues or fees deduction ordered by the [Agricultural Labor Relations] Board is more than the 2.5 percent pay increase ordered in the contract,” said Gerawan via email. “The union will be enriched at the expense of the workers.”

On Oct. 25, 2013, Gerawan worker Sylvia Lopez filed a petition with the ALRB to hold an election to decertify the UFW as the workers’ representative. The election was held Nov. 5, 2013.

But the ballots were impounded and not counted due to numerous objections filed against the election. The UFW filed 32 objections, most of them alleging employer misconduct, according to the ALRB. Gerawan Farming and Lopez filed 20 objections alleging misconduct by the UFW and the mishandling of the election by the ALRB.

Gerawan workers back management, not union

The ALRB has scheduled a hearing to consider the objections on Sept. 17.

Gerawan workers have expressed frustration with the delay. On Aug. 26, more than a thousand Gerawan workers wearing shirts saying “Count Our Votes!” on the front and the First Amendment on the back marched in front of the ALRB office in Visalia, according to Gotnews.com.

“At the time of the decertification election, the employees knew the contents of the so-called contract when they voted,” said Gerawan. “So it is wrong for ALRB to displace the employees’ desires with ALRB’s and UFW’s dictates.”

The UFW sees the dispute quite differently. UFW President Arturo Rodriguez’s Labor Day message targeted Gerawan Farming:

“On Labor Day, when millions of Americans celebrate labor, workers at Gerawan Farming should be getting extra holiday pay. But they’re not because their employer, one of the biggest grape and tree fruit growers in America with over 5,000 workers, refuses to honor a union contract issued by a neutral state mediator—after Gerawan refused to negotiate one with the workers’ union, the United Farm Workers.

“Gerawan workers also didn’t get extra holiday pay on Labor Day last year. Or on other holidays such as July 4th of this year. By refusing to honor the contract, Gerawan is getting out of paying its workers millions of dollars. Prosecutors for the state of California have filed four complaints—like indictments—against Gerawan for breaking the law, that includes refusing to negotiate in good faith and refusing to honor the state-issued contract.

“Gerawan needs to be made to obey the law and honor the workers’ union contract. Then thousands of Gerawan workers can get their extra holiday pay on Labor Day—plus all the other pay raises and benefits from the contract.”

The bad blood between Gerawan Farming and the UFW goes back to 1990, when the UFW won an election to represent Gerawan workers. But after one bargaining session, the union left and didn’t return for 20 years.

“The union has repeatedly refused to explain the 20-year absence, saying it has no obligation to explain it,” according to a Gerawan press release.

The UFW doesn’t explain its absence in its website discussion of the dispute, but does charge that “Gerawan attempted unsuccessfully to have the election thrown out, and the state of California found that Gerawan illegally fired a crew of workers for supporting the union and unlawfully closed down six of its farm labor camps in retaliation for workers backing the UFW.”

Millions of dollars hang in the balance

Charges and countercharges have flown back and forth between the two sides in the press, before the ALRB and in the judicial system. Millions of dollars are at stake, according to Rodriguez and former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso in a recent op-ed in the Fresno Bee:

“California lets workers call in neutral state mediators to hammer out contracts when growers refuse to sign them. Under the contract terms set by the mediator — not the UFW — in May, the majority of Gerawan employees would have received approximately $1,074 each, retroactive to July 2013. This was to cover paid holidays and wage increases reflecting a 54-hour workweek.

“The new contract also would have handed other Gerawan workers a 2.5% wage increase, also retroactive to July 2013, plus 5% pay hikes in 2014 and 2015. For approximately 5,000 farm-workers, those back wages and benefits would have conservatively translated into many millions of dollars, just covering July 2013 to May 2014. Going forward, the contract would produce many millions of dollars more for workers over its duration.”

Gerawan believes California politics and SB25 have stacked the deck against agricultural employers in resolving labor disputes.

“The picture is this: you have got a labor board staffed with political appointees,” he said. “Three board members appointed by the governor and counsel appointed by the governor.

“[If SB25 becomes law] they have the right to write a labor contract, impose it and make it effective immediately with no judicial overview. This is huge. With SB25 no judge will even have a chance to look at it.”

He was supported by Assemblyman Donald Wagner, R-Irvine, at the July 2013 Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing.

“We have a circumstance where a union has essentially done nothing for 20 years,” said Wagner. “We do rightly applaud Cesar Chavez. But I don’t want to confuse what we’re celebrating. The point of these labor laws is not to protect the union. The union is a vehicle to protect the works who deserve the protection.

“I’m hearing about these [Gerawan employees] who are worried about being disenfranchised under this bill. I‘m wondering why we have to turn contract law on its head … maybe merely to help the union.”

But one matter looms large. Farmers need more laborers to work the fields, and Americans have not stepped up to the plate.

That has not just been a problem for California. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, for instance, the challenge has been the same. As the Philadelphia Inquirer put it, local workers “don’t like the job and don’t stay long.” The immigrants who replace them, meanwhile, are sniffed out by the federal government and ordered to be dismissed.

With pressures like those, America’s farmers have eagerly joined a renewed push for nationwide guest-worker laws. They have been joined by a powerful coalition of special interests to press for changes. Trade groups, chambers of commerce, and municipal organizations all benefit from cheap and plentiful labor.

California’s agriculture lobby, however, sought an especially high profile in the drive to give legal status to undocumented workers. That’s exactly what they got. The Los Angeles Times recently claimed that “except for illegal immigrants, no group has more at stake in the national fight over immigration reform than California farmers.”

Late last month, The New York Times ran a big profile. Headlined, “California Farmers Short of Labor, and Patience,” the report focused on the political stakes. Thanks to declining rates of immigration and increased deportations, agricultural employers have faced a steadily shrinking labor pool.

GOP divisions

Meanwhile, the California GOP has shied away from any comprehensive plan for immigrant legalization. That has led traditionally Republican growers and farmers to question whether their party deserves their money this election cycle. And it’s led others to consider simply moving their operations to Mexico.

Only a few California Republicans have responded to the tension by supporting measures to offer a “path to citizenship.” Democrats have been quick to capitalize. According to a new Department of Agriculture report pushed by Secretary Tom Vilsack, California could lose over $3 billion a year if immigrant farm labor doesn’t increase past its current 74 percent mark of the total farm work force.

By any measure, that’s already a very high proportion. Conservatives unhappy with the costs of the current system have condemned the farmers’ discontent. For critics including Ann Coulter, big employers of illegal workers have much to be thankful for. Current law allows them to turn a profit, while citizens pay for workers’ social services. What’s more, California ranks 10th among the 50 states collecting farm subsidies, with $10.3 billion handed out from 1995 to 2012.

Yet a closer look at the data has revealed a more complex picture. In one example, only 9 percent of California farms have collected subsidies, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The immigration issue doesn’t just divide Republicans in California. It divides California farmers. Some naturally align with the pro-business agenda of the party establishment. Others fit better with a more populist, independent agenda.

For these farmers, frustrations over immigration are part of a long-term grievance against the state and federal governments. At the Western Farm Press, Todd Fitchette summed up their mood in a single idea: California farmers have done more to help Mexican immigrants “than any political program dreamed up in an office in Washington, D.C. or Sacramento.”

On Dec. 16, Gerawan filed a constitutional challenge against the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, with the United Farm Workers of America as a “Real Party of Interest.” It was filed with the California Court of Appeal, Fifth District in Fresno, against the ALRB’s invocation of the California’s Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation Statute. The statute was signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis in 2002.

This was part of wrangling with the United Farm Workers Union that began in Oct. 2012, when the union insisted that a collective bargaining agreement covering Gerawan workers be reactivated — even though there had been no union involvement with the workers since 1995. Some of the workers then began a process for a vote to decertify the union.

A vote on the decertification was held on Nov. 5, 2013. But On Nov. 19, 2013, the results of the vote were held up by the ALRB, which claimed a large number of the ballots were ineligible. In an email to CalWatchdog.com, ALRB Executive Director J. Antonio Barbosa also charged “misconduct, that allegedly affected the outcome of the election.”

The ALRB chose an arbitrator to decide the matter, leading to Gerawan’s court filing.

Pleading

In its court pleading, Gerawan charged:

“MMC is a compulsory arbitration process under which a mediator acting as an arbitrator dictates the terms of a CBA [collective bargaining agreement] between a grower and a union. The MMC Statute authorizes the Board to adopt the mediator’s report as a final order. The employer has no right to opt-out of this process. The employees have no right to ratify or reject the ‘contract’ imposed upon them, which here would require them to pay union dues or fees or lose their jobs. 

“The MMC Statute empowers one man – here, labor mediator Matthew Goldberg – to write a complex and massive ‘agreement’ between two private parties that would let it have the force of law….“

“This procedure has no counterpart under federal labor law, which expressly forbids the imposition of contractual terms or concessions upon a private employer or a labor organization.”

Overall dispute with the ALRB

By Chris Reed

A Democratic congresswoman from California wants you to know she cares about some poor people — the ones who use food stamps. This is from the Bee:

“Doris Matsui of Sacramento on Wednesday pledged to spend only $13.50 on food the next three days, joining nearly 30 of her fellow House Democrats in protest of cuts to the federal food stamp program.

“The Senate on Monday approved a 10-year, $955 billion farm bill that includes a $400 million a year cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. A House proposal would cut the program by $2 billion a year.

“Matsui said via Facebook and Twitter that 200,000 residents of Sacramento County rely on food assistance and that she would take part in the ‘SNAP Challenge’ and live off the average benefit of $4.50 a day.

“‘Feeding a family on SNAP is already challenging, and these cuts would make it even harder,’ Matsui wrote on her Facebook page. ‘That is why I am taking the SNAP Challenge to raise awareness of hunger in our nation and to highlight the importance of SNAP.'”

Help Central Valley farmers? Nah. Let them use food stamps to buy cake.

But does Matsui care about the  poor people who don’t want to rely on food stamps? The poor people who need not welfare but jobs — giving them regular paychecks so they can avoid being on the dole? Of course not. She’s a Democrat from Sacramento, after all — and one who turned her back on her hometown at an absolutely crucial moment.

This is what I wrote about her in June 2009 on the late lamented America’s Finest Blog:

“A Central Valley lawmaker’s crusade to move farmers ahead of fish in California’s water pecking order now has the backing of 37 House Democrats … . But when it came time for a crucial House Rules Committee vote Wednesday night on whether to allow Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, to try to attach farmer-relief language to a $32 billion Interior Department funding bill, the panel voted 8-4 to block the attempt. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, was the only Democrat to side with Nunes, the Bee reported.

“Which prompted me to look up the 13 members of the House Rules Committee. Which led me to this fact. If Cardoza was the only rules panel Dem to back Nunes, that means Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, either voted against Nunes, abstained or missed the vote.

Mayor of Matsui’s impoverished hometown stunned at her callousness

“Given the importance of agriculture to California, this is bad already. But here’s the kicker from Matsui’s official bio. She grew up … on a farm in California’s Central Valley. Further research shows specifically she lived in Dinuba, a town in Nunes’ district, 30 miles southeast of Fresno. Where the families-in-poverty rate in 2007 was 22 percent, well more than double the national average, and is almost certainly much higher now between the recession and the environmentalist-led assault on Central Valley farming.

“Betrayals of the people you grew up among don’t get much more complete than this. Doris Matsui must not believe in karma.

“I called up Dinuba Mayor Mark Wallace. … Wallace said Nunes’ efforts to change Central Valley water policy were absolutely crucial. ‘I can’t believe that anyone would vote against this no matter who they were, especially in these tough times.’

“Wallace said he didn’t know Matsui or of her background. But he said that he ‘absolutely could not’ believe that someone from Dinuba could treat it and the Central Valley so poorly.”

Matsui did vote no on the relief. She wants farmworkers to have access to water and shade. She just doesn’t care if they actually have work on farms.

No, things haven’t gotten better in Dinuba since 2009. The most recent reports show the town has a 26.4 percent poverty rate, which is even worse than the state’s rate, which is the highest in the nation. But the congresswoman from Dinuba probably thinks that’s no big deal — at least if the impoverished people she betrayed have access to food stamps.

By Katy Grimes

First there was “global warming.” Then it became “climate change” when warm temperatures cooled.

But in California, the California Environmental Protection Agency is promoting global warming again.

“State releases plan to deal with extreme heat caused by global warming,” the CalEPA press release stated. “In the wake of the hottest July ever recorded in the United States, California state agencies today released a plan to deal with extreme heat caused by global warming,” the CalEPA warned.

The hottest July ever recorded in the U.S.? What about California? It wasn’t that hot in our state in July.

“Every year people in California succumb to extreme heat,” said California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Matt Rodriquez, who chairs the state’s Climate Action Team, the press release reported.

Demonstrative of an agency looking for a problem to solve, the CalEPA’s proposed plan states:

“Some of the proposed recommendations in this draft document include:

*update California’s Green Building Standards to include heat mitigation measures; expand the use of cool pavements and surfaces where possible;

*promote and expand urban greening; improve heat-health alert warnings;

*work with utilities and local health departments to ensure that senior housing and cooling centers can be made exempt from rolling blackouts whenever possible;

*augment training of employers and employees in industries with outdoor work;

*evaluate work conditions such as reducing physically demanding work during hot times of the day, and addressing the work/rest cycle during periods of high heat.”

 These people are serious.

Climate Change and sustainability

It appears that CalEPA and the Air Resources Board are trampling on each others’ toes and falling all over each other to do the lions share of the climate change work.

But the bottom line is that the state of California is working diligently to curb greenhouse gas emissions based on bad science, and following the United Nations plan for sustainable development. Groups of unelected bureaucrats are making these decisions because they have been appointed to important positions in the state.

Climate Action Reserve is one group that CalEPA cites. Self-described as “the premier carbon offset registry for the North American carbon market,” the Climate Action Reserve is setting policy about agriculture, coal mining, forests and even Mexico’s livestock and landfills policy.

Take some time to click on the links. CAlEPA has them all on its Portal page. Be sure to read An Assessment of California’s Agriculture’s Readiness for Climate Change.

One of the conclusions in the study merely promotes more studies.

“California has made considerable progress towards understanding how climate change may impact the state’s agriculture sector. But too few research studies have been conducted on how agriculture might respond effectively to reduce GHG emissions, sequester carbon and adapt to a changing  climate. And fewer studies still take a sustainable and organic agricultural perspective. Moreover, the state’s ability to provide technical assistance and conservation incentives for farmers and ranchers is woefully inadequate to meet the complex challenges of climate change after decades of budget cuts have reduced staffing levels and eliminated programs.”

Is this why Gov. Brown so desperately needs to raise taxes?  This is your state government at work.