The long-expected showdown between the Trump administration and the state of California over water, farmers and the Central Valley appears to be imminent. On. Aug. 17, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued a memorandum declaring his staff had 15 days to draft a plan that would increase water for the region’s agricultural industry by reinterpreting relevant federal policies and laws and by targeting “unacceptable conditions” advocated by the state of California.

Zinke specifically cited the need to “streamline” the process under which the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act are considered and invoked in Central Valley decisions. He wrote that this has prevented long-term changes in federal water decision-making.

Behind the bureaucratic language, it appears the Trump administration is taking dead aim at broad water policies that Central Valley House Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes have long said valued the interests of declining fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta over the interests of the region’s farmers, who have made the Central Valley the nation’s agricultural breadbasket.

But even if the Zinke deadline is met and the Interior Department has new water allocation rules and policies in place by the Sept. 1 deadline, quick change seems unlikely. That’s because environmental groups which have fought previous changes sought by the previous Republican presidents, in particular George W. Bush, have long found judges to be sympathetic to their interpretation of the ESA. A significant number of moderate GOP lawmakers also oppose major changes in existing green regulations.

The green coalition contends that the health of salmon and Delta smelt in Central Valley waterways and rivers is a proxy for the health of Northern California’s ecosystem. Greens say that giving more water to farmers by diverting some of the fresh water now pumped into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could lead to a disaster that affects the whole state – very much including the 19 million residents who deeply rely on water from the rest of the state that’s distributed by the giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Trump’s promises to Central Valley farmers during an August 2016 campaign appearance in the region foreshadowed Zinke’s order. But a more specific, recent cause may have been farmers’ complaints about the California State Water Resources Board, which took two days of public testimony last week on its plan to increase water pumped into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta from February to June to shore up endangered salmon.

Farmers, allies also weigh court challenges

Just as environmentalists threaten legal action over how federal decisions affect Central Valley water use, those aligned with farmers vow court fights over the proposed state policy change.

“If they vote to take our water, this does not end there,” state Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Modesto, told the Associated Press. “We will be in court for 100 years.”

While Trump was nearly doubled up in 2016 California voting by Democrat Hillary Clinton, he ran far better in farm regions. He won easily in the two counties with the state’s largest agricultural economies, taking Kern County by 55 percent to 40 percent and Tulare County by 53 percent to 41 percent.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump’s promise to help Central Valley farmers get more water and to reduce environmentalists’ influence over the federal government got him a

As president, for a variety of reasons, Trump so far has only been able to provide part of the relief on water supplies that many in the Central Valley sought, even in the wake of a winter rain deluge. But Trump has signaled his intent to honor his promise to help the region by choosing David Bernhardt – a veteran of California’s water wars – for the No. 2 job in the Interior Department.

Bernhardt is a Colorado-based partner in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a multi-state law firm which has on four occasions represented the Central Valley’s Westlands Water District, the largest U.S. irrigation district, in lawsuits targeting Interior Department policies. The law firm has been paid $1.3 million by the water agency since 2011.

Bernhardt’s Senate confirmation is expected this week or soon thereafter, but it may be close to a party-line vote. At a May 17 meeting of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Bernhardt was grilled by ranking Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington and other Democrats over the conflicts of interest he would face because of his history representing Westlands and Cadiz, a Los Angeles land development firm that has fought with federal regulators over its audacious plan to access the water in a Mojave Desert aquifer.

Bernhardt: Effect on jobs should matter in regulatory decisions

At the hearing, Bernhardt repeatedly said he would avoid issues involving former clients unless given the blessing of Interior Department ethics lawyers. But Bernhardt’s remarks in answer to another question explain why he may be such a threat to the Central Valley’s water status quo.

When asked about his commitment to “scientific integrity” in enforcing Interior Department policies, Bernhardt said, “I will look at the science with all its significance and its warts. You look at that, you evaluate it and then you look at the legal decision you can make. In some instances the legal decision may allow you to consider other factors, such as jobs.”

This is music to the ears of many Californian Republicans, starting with Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare. He has long contended that the Central Valley has suffered from a “man-made drought” because of bureaucratic decisions that interpret laws in ways that place the interests of  endangered fish such as the delta smelt over the needs of humans – despite no compelling legal obligation to do so.

The Obama administration rejected the contention, saying that its actions to use fresh water supplies to help sustain the delta smelt instead of helping Central Valley farmers followed laws requiring the federal government to protect endangered species and the ecosystem of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Administration representatives said the decisions Nunes slammed as arbitrary were anything but.

Yet the highest-profile fight between Bernhardt’s law firm and Obama’s Interior Department wasn’t about the delta smelt or allegedly dubious bureaucratic maneuvering. It was over toxic substances in the irrigation water coming from Westlands’ 940 square-mile district. Despite criticism from environmentalists, the Obama administration agreed to a settlement on how the problem would be ameliorated that the Fresno Bee estimated could save the water agency more than $375 million. Greens who didn’t like the ruling couldn’t overcome the case that Bernhardt built that federal courts had consistently held that the federal government bore the burden for building drainage systems to limit the impact of the toxins.

Feds control 100 million acres of land in California

But Bernhardt’s confirmation would also insert him in other California water issues.

As a Sacramento Bee editorial noted, the deputy interior secretary historically has been “directly involved in virtually every aspect of California water, from the Colorado River agreement in the south to the Klamath River in the north, and, especially, the operations of the Central Valley Project.”

Given that the federal government owns or effectively controls 100 million acres of land in California – second only to Alaska in federal land holdings in the 50 states – this focus by the agency’s number two official is unsurprising.

California’s beleaguered farmers had their hopes for a better 2017 rekindled as landmark water legislation delayed for years finally passed Congress. But the political cost to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a key supporter, has been high, with outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer digging in her heels against the bill and pushing for White House opposition. The strife has underscored the difficulty California Democrats have had in smoothing over internal disagreements over core policy issues that have risen to the surface of contention after years of all but one-party rule in the state. 

“A rough five years in the making, the $558 million bill approved by the Senate early Saturday morning steers more water to farmers, eases dam construction, and funds desalination and recycling projects,” McClatchy reported. For state farmers, the bill promised a greater inflow of water from Delta pumps, drought relief and a dose of federalism.

Curtis Creel, Water Agency General Manager for Kern County, told Bakersfield Now the rule requiring an increased role for state and local officials mattered most. “It instructs the (Federal) Fish and Wildlife Service to coordinate with state and local agencies who have expertise in dealing with science related to the Delta, as well as operations of the water projects,” he approvingly explained. 

For its part, the Golden State has stuck to a neutral position for now. “In California, the state’s Natural Resources Agency is staying out of the fray and declined comment on the bill,” according to the San Jose Mercury News. 

Long wait

Central Valley farmers have held out for measures like the water bill’s for decades. “All sides agree the California water package marks the biggest federal shift in the state’s water use since the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which focused more on protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” McClatchy noted. “Farmers hated the CVPIA but, in a mirror image of this year’s water bill, it was included in a bigger package that rolled right over one of the state’s protesting senators.”

“The Republican senator who was left standing alone in fighting the 1992 bill, John Seymour, was subsequently defeated by Feinstein. One of the other big losers in that earlier legislative fight, the Westlands Water District, is among the victors in this year’s bill, after spending more than $1 million on lobbying in the last two years.”

Democrats divided

In an ironic twist, Feinstein herself has now found herself at the center of controversy among fellow Democrats. In the unusual position of defending her decision against environmentalist fears, “Feinstein’s office claimed that the legislation does not violate the Endangered Species Act, because it contains a ‘savings clause’ that dictates that nothing in the provision shall violate the act,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “House Democratic aides countered that the courts have ruled that direct instructions from Congress, in this case on how much water can be pumped from rivers, always supersede more general clauses declaring that nothing in the legislation violate bedrock environmental law.” Boxer has suggested that the legislation’s fate will have to be settled in the courts. 

But the momentum in Washington favors its passage, even with President Obama’s cautious disapproval of its current language. Through his press secretary Josh Earnest, President Obama declined to throw Feinstein a political lifeline, but did little to shore up Boxer’s position. “Based on what we know so far, we don’t support the kinds of proposals that have been put forward to address some of the water resources issues in California right now,” Earnest said, as CalWatchdog previously noted. “So, we don’t support that measure that’s being put forward, but we’ll take a look at the bill in its totality.” But the White House did not raise the prospect of a veto — possibly managing expectations in the face of strong support in Congress for the bill’s broad infrastructure reform. 

Despite a major shift in its construction strategy, newly anticipated budget overruns hit California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project, as citizens and lawmakers mounted fresh challenges to the scheme.

“California High-Speed Rail Authority employees are warning of possible cost overruns on the first segment of the bullet train, not long after construction began,” according to the Associated Press. “Finance officials told rail board members Tuesday that the project could need another $150 million for the first 29-mile segment near Fresno. In all, that could push contingency costs $260 million higher than the board already has approved for the entire first section.”

The news marked another frustration and potential embarrassment for rail officials, who had recently upended their years-long plan to begin construction in Southern California. Belatedly discovering that tunneling the train’s way into and out of Los Angeles could grind progress to a virtual halt, they quickly pivoted to a plan that would start laying the train’s path in and around Silicon Valley.

Shifting gears

“The Caltrain commute line between Gilroy and San Francisco is poised to get an early infusion of cash to help pay for its $1.7 billion conversion to electric power,” the San Francisco Chronicle noted. “That conversion is essential for high-speed rail. Plus, the South Bay, Peninsula and San Francisco constitute a huge potential market for bullet trains. A promise of early Bay Area service could build political support for the overall system and attract private investment that is badly needed to build out the $68 billion rail line.”

Yet state officials announced that the Silicon Valley starting point would enable them to connect travelers with the Central Valley for less than the original $68 billion. “In an updated draft plan for the rail line that will whisk passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under three hours by 2029, the California High-Speed Rail Authority revised downward the cost of the entire line, to $64.1 billion from nearly $68 billion,” Reuters observed. The new budget anticipates nearly $3 billion “in additional funding from the federal government,” with San Jose linking up to Kern County “by 2025.”

Legal challenges

Even the altered scheme has returned the rail authority to familiar territory: court. On the heels of “more than a dozen” lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times reported, officials found themselves once again under legal attack: “The California bullet train project violates state law because it is not financially viable, will operate slower than promised and has compromised its design by using existing shared tracks in the Bay Area, attorneys for Kings County and two Central Valley farmers argued. The lawsuit asserts that the state’s plans for the Los Angeles to San Francisco high-speed rail link violate restrictions placed on the project under the $9-billion bond act that voters approved in 2008.”

“The suit asks to halt funding for construction and land acquisition, allowing spending only to develop an alternative plan. A ruling is supposed to be issued within 90 days. Judge Michael Kenny had asked the attorneys to focus on five technical questions revolving around the state’s compliance with the bond act.”

The lawsuit echoed doubts raised recently by Assemblyman David Hadley, R-South Bay. Hadley “told local radio station KFI 640 AM that the new route potentially goes against a provision in the high-speed rail legislation that says the train must first connect to Los Angeles,” according to Reason. “He stated the language was added to ensure Southern Californians didn’t foot the bill for a train that could very well end up becoming a regional transportation project. Hadley is introducing legislation next week that would take a portion of funds away from the high-speed rail project based on the new plans to build north,” the magazine added.

Despite limiting water use, residents in lower-income areas have complained that they have faced substantial fines, while some of the Golden State’s most conspicuous consumers have escaped penalty. In Apple Valley, “where the median household income is below $50,000 a year,” some have struggled to keep their consumption below the limit, while one “home under construction in Bel Air has been issued permits for five pools,” the New York Times reported:

“Los Angeles officials hope to start imposing fines so steep that even the wealthy who populate Bel Air will notice. Elsewhere, though, fines have already piled up on middle-class Californians. The Central Valley city of Clovis, faced with an order to cut back 36 percent, has meted out more than 23,000 fines since the mandatory water reductions began in June. In Santa Cruz, where water supplies have run dangerously low, the city has assessed more than $1.6 million in penalties for using too much water.”

Mid-month, Gov. Jerry Brown issued a fresh order expanding and strengthening his strict water policies. “The order gives state water officials greater authority to deal with drought conditions and to cope with potential winter storms from El Nino, a periodic warming of ocean surface temperatures,” as Reuters reported, extending emergency conservation “through October if California still faces a drought in January. The order also extends the suspension of some environmental rules, lets some state residents capture more water and expedites rebuilding permits for power plants damaged by wildfires.”

Localities have braced for the new, unprecedented groundwater regulations as officials have been dispatched to implement and enforce them. “They are under orders to begin actively managing underground aquifers that for generations have been treated as a private resource, with property owners empowered to dig wells and extract as much water as they wanted without particular regard for their neighbors or government agencies,” the Sacramento Bee noted.

“But even amid the sobering accounts of dried-up wells, salt-tainted groundwater and collapsing aquifers in California farm country, no one expects regulation will be easy to set up or sell. Instead, the entire process — starting with just who gets to decide how much water can be ‘sustainably’ pumped in a region — is expected to spark lengthy debate and complicated lawsuits. This is particularly true in farm-rich regions such as Kings County, where the groundwater basins are critically overdrawn.”

Some farmers face the prospect of having to simply cease operations after a relatively brief period of time. “Land retirement is coming to California agriculture. The drought will end someday, maybe even this winter, but farmers will still face long-term shortages of water,” the Bee observed separately. “The relentless groundwater pumping that has kept hundreds of farms going the past four years is coming to an end.”

Meanwhile, other parts of the state have wound up with a large surplus of water, thanks to the uniformity of conservation regulations. “Unlike other parts of California, San Diego has 99 percent of the water needed for normal usage. But statewide conservation mandates have applied equally to areas that have plenty of water and those that don’t, so the result here has been water piling up unused while local water agencies raise rates to make up for lost sales,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “The new supply is just one more reason local water officials are advocating for the state to ease conservation mandates for areas where supplies are ample, which would lessen the oversupply.”

Bishop, CA

Gov. Jerry Brown suffered another setback in his effort to gain the upper hand over California’s persistent drought. New details on alterations to his massive pumping plan, which would change the way the Delta region distributes the water that flows into it, revealed major changes that have aroused major opposition.

In a harsh editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle underscored that the altered scheme “will cost more, provide less water than originally envisioned (but more than pumped south now), restore less than half of the delta habitat than proposed, take longer to build and, most notably, lack the 50-year guarantee of water deliveries that made the old plan attractive.”

For that, Brown had federal regulators to blame. Environmental agencies objected that his half-century assurance “would lock in water deliveries without regard to shifting environmental conditions,” the Chronicle reported. Since that fact was inherent to any such promise, Brown had to drop it in order to proceed.

Measurement problems

The problem has been compounded by a simple dilemma: “nobody can say with certainty how much Delta water is actually being used by Delta farmers,” as the Sacramento Bee observed. “The state allows thousands of water rights holders to divert water directly from rivers and streams, but in most cases has no metering system in place to gauge just how much they take.” What’s more, relying on a meter system could simply produce unclear results, the Bee added, “because of the complexities of the estuary itself: a fragile natural ecosystem that’s been replumbed and reconfigured to deliver water to farms and cities to the south and west.”

The Delta drama played out amid state regulators’ first issuance of a fine for unauthorized water use in a farming district. “The proposed fine, which the district will likely contest in a coming hearing, is the first fine sought by the Board under a new structure in which water rights holders can be penalized for past unauthorized use of water, even if they have stopped diverting since,” Mother Jones noted.

Regulators, farmers, and others have clashed over measurements involving other sources of water, too. “California still doesn’t require that water pumped from underground be measured at all, much less factored into an overall assessment of total water resources,” according to a ProPublica reporter writing for the New York Times; “it’s merely an option under a new law signed last September.”

“California’s new groundwater legislation does require local water authorities to come up with sustainable groundwater plans, but they don’t have to do that until 2020, and they don’t have to balance their water withdrawals until 2040.”

Regulatory wrangling

Meanwhile, in Washington, Congressional Republicans have centered around a fresh push to reform the federal rules around how much California’s pumps can flow. The Western Water and American Food Security Act of 2015 boasted the support of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “We designed the bill to move as much water down south to our farms and to our cities as possible without making any fundamental changes to the environmental law,” said McCarthy.

“A bill by Republican Rep. David Valadao set for consideration Thursday would require that federal regulators maintain certain pumping levels unless the secretary of the Interior Department certifies that level would harm the long-term survival of the Delta smelt and no other alternatives to protect the smelt are available,” the Associated Press reported. “The 170-page bill also sets deadlines for the completion of feasibility studies to build or enlarge five dams in the state and ends efforts to build up salmon populations in the San Joaquin River.”

Observers expected the bill to meet the same fate as two previous attempts by the House GOP to pass federal drought relief for California on terms amenable to state and national Republicans, many of whom view strict environmental regulations as a major source of residents’ water woes. But Valadao, in a news conference covered by AP, said the legislation’s Senate outlook was “still up in the air,” with “some support” fueling hopes of a possible win.

“The action by the State Water Resources Control Board, after weeks of warnings, affects 114 different water-rights holders in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river watersheds, as well as the Delta region,” the Sacramento Bee reported. Not since 1977 have restrictions dug so deep into the state’s so-called riparian rights system.

Only the beginning

State officials told the New York Times that further restrictions are all but a foregone conclusion, with reassessments to be conducted on a weekly basis.

“The reductions announced Friday apply to more than 100 water right holders in the San Joaquin and Sacramento watersheds and delta whose claims to water came after 1903,” reported the Times. “While the cuts will fall primarily on farmers, some will affect small city and municipal agencies, as well as state agencies that supply water for agricultural and environmental use. Water can still be used for hydropower production, as long as the water is returned to rivers.”

Despite the blanket expansion of cuts, some rights holders fared better than others. San Francisco, where rights date to 1901, avoided the strictures for now. Meanwhile, in the state’s agricultural heartland, the pain was sharply felt. According to the Bee, residents drawing water from the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project “have lost about one-third of their water this year. The University of California, Davis, estimates that more than 560,000 acres of farmland will sit idle.”

A different future

Deep into the most serious and protracted challenge of his time in office, Gov. Jerry Brown has tightened the taps with a methodical urgency and a quintessentially Californian sort of spirituality. In recent remarks for the Los Angeles Times, Brown took a cosmic view of California’s future, weaving conservationism and futurism together in an extended metaphor of “spaceship Earth.”

“We are altering this planet with this incredible power of science, technology and economic advance. If California is going to have 50 million people, they’re not going to live the same way the native people lived, much less the way people do today,” said Brown. “You have to find a more elegant way of relating to material things. You have to use them with greater sensitivity and sophistication.”

But Brown affirmed that residents will have to pay for their enlightened approach to growth. “A lot of heavy lifting will be done by local water districts, and that will show up in your water bill,” he told the Times.

To the courts

Not all Californians, of course, share Brown’s vision, or that of the Water Resources Control Board. The result, analysts predicted, would be a flood of litigation. “Within hours of the board’s announcement,” the Los Angeles Times recounted, “officials of the Oakdale Irrigation District in the San Joaquin Valley issued a statement saying that they were ready to seek a court injunction to put a hold on the curtailment.”

Their case appeared to hinge on claims that the WRCB used inadequate information on water use to overstep its regulatory authority. Oakdale Irrigation District chief Steve Knell suggested to the Times that California “doesn’t have the authority to manage pre-1914 rights, nor does the board have accurate data on diversions by junior rights holders.”

But the board blamed the cuts’ rough consequences on the state’s inflexible rights regime. “Those ordered to stop diverting from rivers and streams have other options, including tapping groundwater, buying water at rising costs, using previously stored water or leaving fields unplanted,” officials said, according to the Associated Press. WRCB executive director Thomas Howard was blunt: “It’s going to be different story for each one of them, and a struggle for all of them.”

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.

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.”