New legislation on guns was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown and advanced on Capitol Hill, as California elected officials continued a concerted push for tighter regulations at both the state and federal level.

To the satisfaction of state Democrats, Gov. Brown “signed six gun-control bills into law, including new restrictions on semi-automatic rifles and a requirement that ammunition purchasers undergo background checks,” according to the Los Angeles Times, “saying they will help ‘enhance public safety’ in California.” But Brown also scrapped five more bills that would have cracked down further, “including an expansion of the use of restraining orders to take guns from people deemed to be dangerous.” Brown also rejected language that would expand the definition of firearms, warning against the potential for wide-ranging unintended consequences. 

“The action appeared to be a subtle shift for Brown, whose complicated record on gun control has been marked by skepticism about whether many proposals increase public safety without infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Opponents of the new measures, who bitterly objected to the flood of new rules, remained unswayed by the vetoes. “Brown’s decision to veto almost as many bills as he signed did little to pacify outraged pro-gun groups that believe the measures were improperly rushed through the legislative process in the wake of the San Bernardino and Orlando massacres,” the San Jose Mercury News observed. “One reason was that the governor signed the most controversial bills.”

Another was the stark divide between Republicans and Democrats on the scope of Second Amendment protections for individual private buyers of firearms and ammunition. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a personal right to private ownership, constitutional law grants states and localities a fairly wide berth on how freely available to make guns and bullets. 

Second chances

Democrats to Brown’s left have already shifted focus to the November elections, when Californians will have the opportunity to vote back in much of what the governor left out. “A separate set of gun control measures will appear before voters in November; some of them have been passed by the Legislature, but Mr. Brown vetoed those, saying they should be left to voters to decide,” the New York Times noted. 

“That initiative is being championed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is running for governor after Mr. Brown’s final term ends in 2018. His initiative would, among other things, make firearm theft a felony and require ammunition vendors to report lost or stolen supplies within 48 hours.”

Federal feud

The party has faced slower going in Washington, D.C. As Newsweek observed, “national Democrats and Republicans continue a political battle over the proper response to the spate of mass shootings, with Republicans bending to possibly accept some gun control curbs but unwilling to agree with the extent of Democrats’ proposals. Frustrated Democrats resorted to a talking filibuster and a Congressional sit-in to force the issue in recent weeks, but Congress remains stalled.”

Democratic Gun Violence Prevention Task Force chief Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, insisted that the alternative to proposed legislation tying gun access to the so-called terror watch list was a bill “drafted by the gun lobby,” as the Los Angeles Times reported separately, with Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, characterizing the bill as “a fig leaf to cover up Republicans’ refusal to take any meaningful action on gun violence.” Republicans have countered that the watch list, notorious for bureaucratic mix-ups and overbroad application, would add due process problems to other gun strictures they already oppose. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, lambasted the Democrats’ recent sit-in as “one of the most disgraceful and childish breaches of decorum in the history of this institution,” the Times added. 

Replacement farm water should have been provided before any diversions of farm water for fish runs depleted backup water storage for droughts.  This is one of the major man-made reasons why California is experiencing historic water shortages in a foreseeably severe drought year.

River Restoration Act of 2009

In 2009, Sen. Feinstein pushed her San Joaquin River Restoration Act, H.R. 146, into law when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.  The bill called for diverting 247,000 acre-feet to 356,000 acre-feet of water from farmers per year for restoring fish runs in the river.

The bill estimated, but did not allocate, up to $800 million for river restoration projects for fish. Only $88 million was allocated for initial planning activities. Feinstein’s bill also allocated $102 million to backfill water lost by farms for fish runs.  However, these funds came from a $7 per acre surcharge on farmers’ water rates from the federal Central Valley Project.

From these new backfill water projects about 25,333 acre-feet of water per year will be developed to replace the 800,000 acre-feet of water flushed to the ocean for 305 fish in 2012 and 2013. These backfill water projects won’t be completed until about 2017 when the drought should be over.

Backfill Water Projects 2014 to 2017

On June 14, 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation started awarding funds to irrigation and water storage districts in the Central Valley for four of the backfill water projects to:

• Construct a 60-acre water recharge basin by the Tulare Irrigation District and the Kaweah Delta Water District (8,500-acre-feet).
• Construct the Madera Canal Intertie, a two-directional pipeline and pumping plant including a connection to groundwater banking facilities in Kern County (11,000 acre-feet).
• Build new pipelines for the Porterville Irrigation District (2,500 acre-feet).
• Develop a new groundwater bank for the Pixley Irrigation District (3,100 acre-feet).

All of the projects are still in the engineering design phase and expect to be completed in about 3 years, barring any environmental lawsuits.

Eastern Tulare County, which is served by the Friant-Kern Canal, is one of the hardest hit areas by the compound drought and man-made water shortage of 2014.  There are few wells in this area from which to draw on during cutbacks in water from the canal.

This year customers of the Friant Water Authority were informed they would receive no water allocation.  The normal allocation is 800,000 acre-feet of Class 1 (reliable) water and 1.4 million acre-feet of Class 2 (less reliable) water. However, this reflects only 1.1 percent of the total water allocation and won’t be available for about three more years.

Where is long-term drought planning for farmers?  

The long-term problem is how to establish fish runs over a 60-mile hump in the San Joaquin River that runs dry except in infrequent wet years and still have water for farmers for droughts.  The way this is solved now is releasing huge volumes of water in “pulse flows” that wash the fish out to the ocean. But the solution of diverting farm water for fish before backfilling that lost farm water for droughts and emergencies has resulted in a great, unplanned water-shortage disaster.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-El Dorado Hills, has advocated creating artificial fish hatcheries as an interim solution until enough farm water is backfilled for droughts.

Lack of long-range drought policies is a worldwide problem, according to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, “Droughts’ Rise in Severity Raises a Question: Where is the Long-Term Policy to Help Farmers?”

A study warning that fish water diversions would lead to California water shortages was completed in 2008 by graduate students in the U.C. Santa Barbara Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, supervised by economist Gary Libecamp, PhD. But such studies are scarce.

The University of California published a book in 1982 by Peter Hall that coined the term “Great Planning Disasters.”  Hall stated in a workshop on April 10, 2013 that the way to improve the planning system is to “improve the quality of forecasts.”  At present there are no drought impact forecasts required in court orders or legislation.

But it also was curious that veteran GOP operative, political analyst and former legislative aid Tony Quinn penned a scathing story of conservative stalwart Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove. McClintock, a 22-year California state legislator, was elected to Congress in 2008.

“It is time for California Republicans to confront the real enemies who are dragging them from defeat to defeat, and this means dealing with the Tea Party extremists in their own ranks,” Quinn wrote in Fox and Hounds.

“No Tea Party congressman is more deserving of defeat than Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) whose 30-year career has been devoted to destroying the sunny, positive conservatism that Ronald Reagan gave us and replacing it with a sour, negative, anti-everything fringy right-wing populism.”

Quinn obviously doesn't like McClintock. He doesn't like many conservatives or Republicans, and has a particular dislike for the Tea Party.

Tony v. Tom

Ever since his days as policy director for the Assembly Republican Caucus in the mid-1980's, Quinn has been taking aim at McClintock, who was the Assembly Republican whip at the time.

Quinn also attacks McClintock personally. “McClintock does vote 'yes' on one thing, his own pension,” Quinn said. “The Sacramento Bee recently reported that McClintock is collecting his legislative pension while a member of Congress.”

“Unlike ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, Tom isn’t independently wealthy,” my colleague John Seiler pointed out in a recent story. “So he has to take a government paycheck to support his family. His paycheck is one of the few cases of my tax money being well spent.”

If Quinn believes that McClintock can be attacked for feeding at the public trough because he receives a legislative pension, he should look at opensecrets.org. McClintock ranks 419th out of the 435 House members in personal wealth.

Quinn's rich history of skewering McClintock

Quinn has never been shy about his vehement dislike of McClintock. “Tom McClintock may be the single biggest loser in California political history,” Quinn wrote on Fox and Hounds in 2010. McClintock narrowly lost two races for state controller and one for lieutenant governor. He also finished third in the recall election in 2003, behind winner Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

In a recent story on Fox and Hounds, Quinn even accused McClintock of wanting to weaken the country's national security.

Quinn wrote a story on Fox and Hounds in July complaining about newly elected Republican Sen. Andy Vidak's win in the Central Valley, in “Democrats Foolishly Blow an Easy Win.”

I remember when McClintock ran for Congress in 2008, Quinn was the first to happily predict a McClintock defeat in the primary. But Quinn was wrong. McClintock won by 14 points, despite being significantly outspent.

“McClintock helped pilot the Ted Cruz kamikaze dive bomber this week by supporting both the government shutdown and default on the debt,” Quinn said.  “A Sacramento area cancer survivor who could not get treatment due to the shutdown delivered 140,000 signatures to McClintock’s office urging he vote for the compromise to reopen the government.  What did McClintock do, he voted 'no' as he always does,” Quinn quipped.

That's correct — McClintock voted “no.” But his vote reflects all the many problems Obamacare is bringing. Here are the DrudgeReport's headlines for today:

OBAMASCARE: WOMAN FALLS ILL IN ROSE GARDEN!
CONSUMER REPORTS: 'Stay away'...
FOURNIER: Worse Than We Know...
Busy signal for 'hotline' number provided...
Man Spends 4.5 Hours on Phone But Still Can't Sign Up...
Hannity Gets Through, Operator Says No One Likes It...
WH busted pushing false account of success...
NBA Stars Promote in CA...
CRUZ: 'Nigerian Email Scammers' Running Website...
Zero Enrollments in New York?
Democrats warm to 'delay'...

If McClintock ever manages to surprise supporters on a vote, there likely is a constitutional reason for it. McClintock’s strong civil liberties streak usually attracts a considerable number of Democrats and Independents during election time.

During the government shutdown, on the House floor, McClintock helped push through a measure that would have re-opened the parks, and was joined by 23 House Democrats. I've also written about McClintock's battle to prevent tourist amenities from being removed by environmentalists at Yosemite National Park, which would result in a permanent reduction in tourism in the entire region.

Comparing California Reps

Compared to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, McClintock receives most of his political contributions from individuals, according to the Open Secrets Center for Responsive Politics. Open Secrets reports in the most recent campaign contribution report, 92 percent of McClintock's contributions are from individual contributors. Political Action Committees contribute 7 percent, and large contributors make up 45 percent of his contributors.

Pelosi receives only 39 percent of her contributions from individuals, 39 percent from political action committees, and 26 percent from large contributors. And her large contributors contribute significantly more than McClintock's.

In the 2013-14 campaign cycle, Pelosi has already received $174,097 from large contributors, in mostly $10,400 chunks. McClintock has received $126,569, in the form of $4,500 and $5,200 contributions.

By Katy Grimes

Yosemite National Park is one of America’s greatest natural treasurers, set aside as a national park nearly 150 years ago by Abraham Lincoln specifically for “the public use, resort and recreation…for all time.”

Yet a proposal by the National Park Service, whose motto is “Experience Your America,” fundamentally changes the entire purpose for which Yosemite was set aside in the first place.

This week I interviewed Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. He said the National Park Service has been pushing to radically alter the purpose, nature and use of Yosemite National Park in order to remove most visitors.

McClintock has been waging a battle against the National Park Service and what it has been doing behind closed doors, with the help of radical environmentalists.

A few months ago, McClintock discovered that the National Parks Service “opposes commercial activities” in the park, and has been working very quietly to get them removed. Bicyling, rafting, camping, snowshoeing and horseback riding were all put on the hit list. It also opposes the souvenir shops, snack stands and hybrid bus tours. These “commercial ventures” apparently offend environmental justice seekers and a new brand of enviro-park rangers who are hostile to park visitors, most of them taxpayers who pay the rangers’ salaries.

According to McClintock, the park service has already begun the process of removing human activity in Yosemite.

The Royal Forest

“Ninety-five percent of the park is already in wilderness,” McClintock explained. “Yet the overwhelming majority of park visitors come to that five percent where amenities are available for public recreation: where they can rent a bike; where they can stop at the snack shop to get ice-cream cones for the kids; where they can pick up souvenirs at the gift shop; where the family can cool off at a lodge swimming pool.  And it is precisely these pursuits that the National Park Service would destroy.”

For more than a century, the mission of helping the American people enjoy the grandeur of their national treasure was honored by the park’s stewards.  But no more.  The new plan would radically alter the visitor-friendly mission of the park with a new, elitist maxim: “Look, but don’t touch; visit, but don’t enjoy.”

The increasingly exclusionary and elitist policies of the National Parks Service and National Forest Service are part of the environmental justice movement. “These actions evince an ideologically driven hostility to the public’s enjoyment of the public’s land — and a clear intention to deny the public the responsible and sustainable use of that land,” McClintock said.

“During the despotic eras of Norman and Plantagenet England, the Crown declared one third of the land area of Southern England to be the Royal Forest, the exclusive preserve of the monarch, his forestry officials and his favored aristocrats,” McClintock explained. “The people of Britain were forbidden access to and enjoyment of these forests under harsh penalties.  This exclusionary system became so despised by the people that in 1215, five clauses of the Magna Carta were devoted to redress of grievances that are hauntingly similar to those that are now flooding my office.”

“The National Park Service proposal would remove long-standing tourist facilities from Yosemite Valley, including bicycle and raft rentals, snack facilities, gift shops, horseback riding, the ice-skating rink at Curry Village, the art center, the grocery store, swimming pools, and even the valley’s iconic and historic stone bridges,” McClintock told me. “These facilities date back generations and provide visitors with a wide range of amenities to enhance their stay at — and their enjoyment of — this world-renowned national park.”

The NPS seeks to use the Wild and Scenic River designation of the Merced River as an excuse to expel commercial enterprises and dramatically reduce the recreational amenities available to park visitors. Yet according to the author of the designation, former Rep. Tony Coehlo, D-Calif., this was never the intent of the designation.

The Park Service says the restrictions are necessary to comply with a recent settlement agreement, reached with the most radical and nihilistic fringe of the environmental Left, according to McClintock.  But McClintock said the settlement agreement was not mandatory and one in which the Park Service voluntarily entered, then paid $1 million to the environmentalists.

The enviro lawsuit

The changes are part of a new set of principles for the park known as the Merced River Plan. Released only in January, the 2,500-page document comes after years of lawsuits over what should be allowed in Yosemite Valley and the Merced River that flows through it, according to McClintock.

The Merced River Draft Plan public webinars and workshops were held in early 2013, but McClintock said they were essentially a farce.

McClintock said the plan calls for the removal of stone Sugar Pine bridge, built in 1928 and located behind the Ahwahnee Hotel, because its abutments “impede the flow of the Merced River and cause erosion.” It also recommends rebuilding only 40 percent of the 406 campsites lost in the 1997 flood, restoring 203 acres of meadows and improving parking. Visitors still would be allowed to bring bikes, horses or rafts to the park but rentals would not be available any longer.

In fact, that agreement imposes no requirement on the government to do anything more than adopt a plan consistent with current law, according to McClintock. “And current law is explicit: the 1864 act establishing the park guarantees its use for public recreation and resort; the 1916 Organic Act creating national parks explicitly declares their purpose to be the public enjoyment of the public lands, and the Wild and Scenic River Act contemplated no changes to the amenities at Yosemite — so says its author, [former] Democratic Congressman Tony Coelho. Yet the Park Service insists that the law compels these radical changes.”

Flood damage

In January of 1997, the Merced River flooded and caused significant damage to the park. The flood even left more than 2,000 park visitors stranded for several days, because the roads were damaged by the floodwaters.

Following the flood, Congress appropriated $17 million to restore the parking and campgrounds that were wiped out. “That money was spent, but the parking and campgrounds were never restored,” McClintock said. He has made several formal inquiries to the National Park Service asking where the money went. Only just this week he received a report from Yosemite officials. Once he has thoroughly reviewed the report, I will share his findings.

Following the flood and Yosemite’s failure to restore the camp sites or parking, McClintock said the number of annual visitors to the park dropped from 4 million to 3 million, a 25 percent drop. Revenues also dropped about 25 percent.

Protected toads and frogs

Further complicating matters, and providing additional evidence of the radical environmentalist agenda behind the Yosemite proposals, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s announced it was going to list the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and the mountain yellow-legged frog as endangered species, and the Yosemite toad as a threatened species. And service was going to designate a critical habitat for these species.

“These listings and the associated critical habitat will impact over two million acres of private, state and federal land,” McClintock said. He noted this was exactly why the Fish and Wildlife Service took the action it did. “Critical habitat designations will likely cause severe restrictions on land access and could limit or forbid activities such as grazing, trout stocking, logging, mining, and recreational use, resulting in a devastating impact on the local economy.”

July 2, 2013 

By Wayne Lusvardi  

Public, municipal and private power companies throughout California buy hydropower from the Western Power Administration. This means ratepayers across California are paying for a wind farm transmission line that benefits only those who live in Alberta, Canada with subsidized power and reduced air pollution. 

Obama administration directives increasing hydropower electricity rates over the past two years to fund green projects caused the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources to hold a hearing in Washington, D.C., on June 26. It was called, “The Power Marketing Administrations: A Ratepayer Perspective.”

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, chairman of the Subcommittee on Water and Power, and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Washington, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, called the hearing.

McClintock summed up the reason for the hearing:

 “Today the subcommittee hears from the ratepayers who are bearing spiraling costs for electricity caused by ill-advised government policy. For example, we will hear that Central Valley Project power customers are being fleeced by an unaccountable tax program that lavishes funds on environmental causes while inflating electricity prices to cost-prohibitive levels.” 

Montana to Alberta Tie Line

Of particular issue is a mandate imposed on the Western Power Administration to finance $161 million of the costs of the Montana to Alberta, Canada Tie Line, a 214-mile transmission line linking wind farms in Montana to provide power in Alberta, Canada.  The Western Power Administration is an independent agency that runs 56 hydropower plants generating 10,505 megawatts of power from 15 Central and Western states, including California and Montana.  The federal mandate comes from Order No. 1000 of the Obama-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which forbids discrimination against wind energy projects.

Newspapers in Canada heralded the project as a “New Merchant Transmission Line with Montana a No-Cost Line for Albertans.”

California pays and Canada benefits

Boasted Dawn Delaney, a spokesperson for the Alberta Electric System Operator, “The cost of planning, designing, constructing, operating and interconnecting a merchant intertie are not paid by Alberta ratepayers.”

Beneficiaries of the new line also include the Spanish firm Grupo NaturEner’s 189-megawatt Rim Rock wind farm located near Kevin, Montana.

Another beneficiary is Morgan Stanley Capital Group that has a power purchase agreement that includes pollution credits needed by San Diego Gas and Electric. In 2010, SDG&E petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission to invest in the Montana to Alberta Tie Line to comply with stringent green power mandates of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Subsidized “Free Market” 

Capital Power, based in Edmonton, Canada couldn’t economically build its originally proposed Halkirk Wind Farm without California pollution credits. Bryan DeNeve, senior vice-president of Enbridge, the private builder and operator of the new transmission line says this is a “whole new approach to Alberta’s free market.” He added:

“If consumers were forced to buy power from renewable sources, that would be a whole different approach to Alberta’s free market and we’d start to look like Ontario (with its Feed-in-Tariff) with its higher prices paid for wind energy.”

What DeNeve fails to mention is that this so-called “free market” is being subsidized by hydropower ratepayers in California’s Central Valley and electricity customers of San Diego Gas & Electric, who pay higher electricity rates. And to meet anti-pollution mandates, California’s regulated electric utilities are being forced to pay to clean up air pollution in places like Canada.

Air is cleaner in Canada but paid for by San Diego

By providing public financing to private merchant wind power and transmission line companies, Canadian-based Capital Power will be able to shut down 2,400 megawatts of older coal-fired power plants by 2021. However, the new wind farms will not entirely replace the old coal power plants, but will also require the construction of new gas-fired power plants for backup when the wind doesn’t blow.

McClintock and Hastings were joined by representatives of the Southwestern (hydro) Power Association, the Public Power Council of Portland, Oregon, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Redding (Calif.) Electric Utility, in criticizing the the Obama administration’s undermining of the long-time policy of “beneficiary pays.”   McClintock said:

“Families and businesses have paid for this resource with interest under the longstanding ‘beneficiaries pay’ principle.  The premise of this doctrine is that those who benefit must pay for their commensurate cost. That doctrine is being radically transformed under this Administration that seems intent on imposing costly mandates, regulations, fees and litigation that are making the monthly arrival of the family utility bill a growing financial nightmare.”

In 2012, ratepayers of SDG&E called for cutting back $600 million in the Rim Rock Wind Farm in Montana.  San Diego electric customers would not directly benefit from the wind farm Tie Line to Alberta, nor would air pollution be reduced in California.  San Diego would not actually get power from the Montana wind farm, but instead would get high-priced certificates so that it could continue to operate polluting power plants in its customer service area.

California’s 33 percent renewable energy mandate has been combined with Obama-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order No. 1000 in a way that the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 and the Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 never intended.

By Wayne Lusvardi

New York Times journalist Peter Passell once wrote: “California’s water system might have been invented by a Soviet bureaucrat on an LSD trip.” And as the 1960s hippies would have put it, the trip would have been a bummer.

San Joaquin Valley farmers must feel they are on such a surreal drug trip.  The Merced Irrigation District has been attempting for some time to raise the spillways on the New Exchequer Dam that creates the artificial lake of Lake McClure in Mariposa County. The lake is located between Modesto on the West and Yosemite National Park on the East. It stores water for 2,200 farmers and generates 100 megawatts of hydroelectric power.  There are 82-miles of shoreline around the winding lake.

Spillway raising doesn’t raise dam

The Merced Irrigation District wants to disturb less than one-half mile of shoreline to raise the McClure Lake spillway up to one foot.  This would allow up to 70,000-acre feet of additional water to be captured once every three years during wet years.  As shown on the photo above, the spillways are not located on or next to the dam, but next to the boat marina and recreation area.

The project would cost about $40 million.  That equates to a very cheap $57 per acre-foot of water over the expected 30-year life of the bonds to finance the project.  Typical agricultural revenues in this area range from $320 to $1,500 per-acre, depending on the type of crop and market. The project would pay for itself through increased agricultural production with no subsidies required.

An acre-foot of water is roughly sufficient to irrigate one-third acre of farmland.  So about 23,333 acres — or about 36 square miles — of additional farmland could be irrigated every three years.

Green benefits would vastly exceed tiny impacts

Expanding the capacity and footprint of the lake would have many potential environmental benefits. Coho salmon are only self-sustaining in Lake McClure, not in the Merced River.  The rare sub-species of the “Limestone Salamander” that has from 9 to 15 colonies around the lake only are found on the north-and-east rocky limestone outcrops and talus slopes of the lake. They are not found where the spillway is located. And the salamander habitat is 5 to 10 miles distant from where the spillway is located. The federally-and-state-listed Bald Eagle concentrates around Lake McClure rather than the Merced River. The rare Shaggyhair Lupine plant — a reported Federal Candidate 2 Species — occurs around Lake McClure.

Thus, critical environmental resources are sustained by the artificial lake with very minor negative impacts due to the proposed project.  Raising the spillway would only impact already disturbed lands.  The spillway is adjacent to the boat ramp and houseboat repair yard of the McClure Point Recreation Area and Marina.

On top of being economically and environmentally sustaining, there is bipartisan political support for the project by Rep. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove).

So raising the spillway would hypothetically be a four-way winning deal for farmers, recreational users of the lake, politicians and the environment.  It sounds like a “no brainer” to approve such a project.

Who put anti-project LSD in the drinking water? 

But the project is opposed by California Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.  The spillway-raising project was part of H.R. 1837, the San Joaquin River Water Reliability Act, that died in the U.S. Senate partially due to non-support by Feinstein and Boxer. Also, 52 environmental organizations who oppose the project.  Among them are Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the California Wilderness Coalition.

Now, Congressmen Costa and McClintock have reintroduced the proposed project as H.R 934 – Amendment to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

This has resulted in a lot of hysteria and factual hallucinations by environmental groups.

Disinformation spread by environmental organizations

Some of the disinformation spread about the McClure Spillway-Raising Project include:

* The project proposes to raise the dam 10-feet thus flooding the abutments and tower foundations for the adjacent bridge.  Fact: It is the spillway — not the dam -– that would be raised.

* It would set a dangerous precedent of being the very first roll back of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.  Fact: The 1987 boundary of the dam inundation area preceded the overlapping boundary line of the Wild and Scenic Rivers designation of the lake that was extended in 1992.

* It would inundate the habitat of the Limestone Salamander, a California endangered species.  In fact, the salamander habitat is 10-miles away from the spillway project. Raising the water level of the lake 10 feet from 867 to 877 feet above sea level for two months each year would only affect a half-mile of shoreline.

* The “dam raising” is motivated by “manic ‘gread’ (sic) for more water, more power, more ‘moeny’ (sic) that motivates the managers of irrigation and water districts.”   Fact: The project is economically self-sustaining and does not enrich water managers or their pensions benefit programs.

* The project is another “porkbarrel boondoggle” that will “produce electricity that will go to the high speed rail” – “the grandmother of all pork barrels.”  Fact check: the project would be paid for by local farmers from the crop production it would generate.  The McClure Lake dam produces 100 megawatts of power.  The spillway-raising project would boost hydropower output to 10,000 megawatts.  The hydropower produced mainly is for water well pumping by the members of the Merced Irrigation District. There is a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for PG&E to buy the hydropower produced by the dam’s hydroelectric turbines.   But the California Bullet Train would require 3 billion megawatts of power.

* Marcilynn Burke, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management, testified to the Obama Administration that: “it (the project) would result in a wild river segment becoming more like a lake than a river.”  Fact: the spillway-raising project is located at the non-flowing lake and not on the Merced River.

Not only have environmental activists apparently engaged in a power trip to block more water, more hydropower, and more wildlife habitat for Lake McClure.  They have been joined by high-level Federal officials including U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

Recently, Sen. Boxer has broken ranks with environmental organizations.  She is now supporting legislation to impose deadlines for environmental reviews of water projects -– especially flood control projects –- in order to end unnecessary delays to projects.  As powerful head of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, would Boxer finally support the Lake McClure Boundary Adjustment Project, which is a win for both farmers and the environment?

By Wayne Lusvardi

Almost out of nowhere, the Obama Administration has opened up discussions for possibly privatizing the model asset of the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority, to bring in revenues to the federal government and reduce the long-term national debt.  Part of President Obama’s strategy is to divest and decommission 59 coal-fired power plants in Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky and replace them with green power.

The TVA is a massive rural redevelopment project of 46 dams and hydropower stations, 59 coal fired power plant units, 14 natural gas fired power plants, five nuclear power plants and navigation channels sprawling over Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Kentucky. The TVA reports an $11.6 billion annual budget for 2013 but a projected net loss of $183 million.

Would Obama privatize the Central Valley Project too? 

The question for California quickly becomes: Could Obama also propose to privatize the Central Valley Project that delivers water to farmers in California’s San Joaquin Valley?

The federal Central Valley Project is not the same as the State Water Project, which was built five decades ago through state bonds.

To give an idea of the magnitude of the CVP, it delivers about 6 million acre-feet of irrigation water to about 3 million acres of farmland in the central San Joaquin Valley.  By comparison, the State Water Project supplies only about 1 million acre-feet of water to farmers.

In the 1930s Great Depression era, the federal government built the Central Valley Project when California was broke.  The federal government had to take over the state water plan to stimulate the agricultural economy and bail out California.  Also, by building a separate water system for farmers that was not under state control, the long-term water disputes between farms and cities were lessened.  The CVP carries water to the Sacramento Delta, which is pending a major re-engineering called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. 

Unlike the TVA, the CVP does not have coal-fired power plants that the Obama Administration wants decommissioned and replaced with green power purportedly to reduce air pollution.  Tennessee air quality is graded as spotty patches of “C,” “D,” and “F.”  California air quality is graded as “F” for most of the Central Valley.

Central Valley Project has only 1/15th the Budget of the TVA

The CVP is not as large as the TVA.  It has 20 dams and reservoirs, 11 hydropower plants, and 500 miles of major canals.  It has a $174.1 million annual budget.   The entire budget for the Central Valley Project is less than the operating deficit for the TVA.

The CVP’s congressional budget appropriation is offset by $39.6 million in fees collected from farmers to fund the San Joaquin River Restoration Project ($1 billion unfunded by Congress, but temporarily funded with $9 million in discretionary funds) and the Indian Water Rights Settlement Account ($26.7 million).

Recovery from farmers of the original capital outlay to build the CVP is projected to fall short by $330 to $390 million by the payoff date of 2031.  Auditors have warned that “the repayment shortfalls could become significant enough to require political intervention.”

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act, H.R. 1837, would have accelerated farmers’ repayments by $221 million.  Republican Reps. David Nunes (R-Tulare), Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), and Jeff Denham (R-Merced) authored and supported H.R. 1837.   H.R. 1837 is sitting in the U.S. Senate without any action taken by California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.  Feinstein and Boxer oppose H.R. 1837 because it would de-fund the San Joaquin River Restoration Act, a $1 billion jobs program to re-wet the dry portions of the San Joaquin River to restore salmon runs.

H.R. 1837 is best chance at reforming Central Valley Project

It would be much more difficult to privatize wholesale water storage and delivery systems compared to retail water companies. The California Public Utilities Commission regulates private retail water companies, but not wholesale government water agencies. In 2001, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California pulled back from buying outsourced water from a private supplier, fearing complications to its water rate structure from the deregulation of its monopoly.

It is unlikely the CVP would be privatized for many reasons.  One big reason is that it does not have so-called “dirty” coal-fired power plants that are a target for elimination by the Obama Administration.

H.R. 1837 would have eliminated the Central Valley Project from being a jobs program and vehicle for politicized reparations.  By contrast, Feinstein’s “Bandit River” restoration project would likely:

* Take away more private sector jobs than gained.
* Require more expenditures to enlarge levees.
* Take away water from farmers without any plan to “restore” it with new supplies.
* Result in high salt content in water and seepage to farmlands.

The Obama-Feinstein-Boxer plan for managing the Central Valley Project has been to regulate first, think later.  Stated differently: the policy of the federal government has been to create jobs programs first and only later deal with the consequences to farmers and farmlands.  This is what I explained in my earlier article, “Salmon eating farmers along the the San Joaquin River.”

Alas, the Central Valley Project is not going to be privatized anytime soon. But it could be reformed so that restoring fish to the river doesn’t end up destroying farm jobs.

By Katy Grimes

If you really want to cut through all of the media noise about the ‘”Fiscal Cliff,” Rep. Tom McClintock, R-CA4, does this succinctly in a speech on Wednesday.

In a nutshell, McClintock explains: “In their blind pursuit of an ‘eat the rich’ ideology, Mr. Obama and his acolytes are imposing a policy that would utterly devastate hundreds of thousands of middle class families who depend on the jobs these small businesses provide. 

And for what? To wring enough money to fund Mr. Obama’s spending spree for a grand total of eight days. It’s telling that three-fourths of the new taxes he has proposed would be used to finance the new spending that he has also proposed.”

The following is the floor speech by McClintock, who once again schools Congress and the President on the reality of the fiscal cliff, where we are headed, who will really be hurt, and what needs to happen.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. 
December 12, 2012

Mr. Speaker:

To understand the federal budget mess and the so-called fiscal cliff, it’s important to remember three numbers: 39, 37 and 64. 

Thirty nine percent is the combined increase of inflation and population over the last ten years. Thirty nine percent. 

Thirty seven percent is the increase in revenues during the same period. That’s despite the recession and tax cuts. Not quite keeping place, but pretty close.

Sixty four is what’s killing us. Sixty four percent is the increase in federal spending in that period. That’s nearly twice the rate of inflation and population over the last ten years. 

The spending side of the fiscal cliff is the so-called sequester: automatic cuts in federal spending. To hear some tell it, these cuts will mean the end of western civilization. 

Hardly. After a 64 percent increase in expenditures this decade, the sequester doesn’t actually cut spending at all: it simply limits spending growth next year to about a half a percent. 

I opposed the budget deal that created the sequester last year because it fell woefully short of what Standard and Poors clearly warned was necessary to preserve the nation’s triple-A credit rating. Sadly, that fear was born out. But now, the sequester is all we have. 

It’s true that defense takes the brunt of it, but does our defense spending today really need to be higher – inflation adjusted — than it was at the height of the Vietnam War, when we faced down the Soviet Union and had 500,000 combat troops in the field? 

The sequester isn’t stepping off a cliff – it’s taking one step back from the cliff. 

The tax increases, however, are a different matter. Without intervention, the federal tax burden will balloon 21 percent at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, taking somewhere between two and three thousand dollars from an average family. This summer, the House passed legislation to protect our nation from such a calamity, but Mr. Obama vowed to veto it and the Senate blocked it. 

Instead, Mr. Obama tells us that he will veto any plan that keeps taxes from going up on those very wealthy folks making over $200,000, who, he says, need to pay their fair share. 

(I suppose fairness is in the eye of the beholder. The top one percent earns 17 percent of all income but pays 37 percent of all income taxes. But that’s beside the point). 

The fine point of it is that a lot of those very wealthy folks making over $200,000 aren’t very wealthy and they aren’t even folks: they’re 1.3 million struggling small businesses filing under sub-chapter S. Our small businesses produce two-thirds of the new jobs in our economy. 

This battle IS very much FOR the middle class. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Mr. Obama’s tax increase on the so-called wealthy will actually throw some 200,000 middle and working class families into unemployment. Two hundred thousand. And that’s the optimistic estimate. An independent analysis by Ernst and Young puts that figure at closer to 700,000 lost jobs. 

That’s because the President’s taxes would slam 84 percent of net small business income – that’s precisely the income used to support and expand the labor force. 

In their blind pursuit of an “eat the rich” ideology, Mr. Obama and his acolytes are imposing a policy that would utterly devastate hundreds of thousands of middle class families who depend on the jobs these small businesses provide. 

And for what? To wring enough money to fund Mr. Obama’s spending spree for a grand total of eight days. It’s telling that three-fourths of the new taxes he has proposed would be used to finance the new spending that he has also proposed. 

Republicans don’t want to see taxes go up on anyone, period. We don’t want to see this government willfully throw hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work by this policy. 

The President obviously believes that in the 11th hour, Republicans will have no choice but ultimately to protect as many taxpayers as we possibly can, since the only alternative will be tax increases on everyone, including the job creators. He may be right. 

But that would mean a bleak and bitter new year for all those families who will watch helplessly as their jobs evaporate before their eyes. 

Let us pray the President has a change of heart before setting this calamity in motion.

Cross posted on the Flash Report

By Wayne Lusvardi

Tomorrow California voters will not be voting on the proposed California Water Bond, which has been postponed until 2014.  But voters will be voting on a number of local water projects such as the proposed Hetch Hetchy dam removal, which is Proposition F in San Francisco.

More importantly, California voters will be deciding on three crucial congressional races that will have statewide influence on water policy and projects. The three incumbent members of Congress shown below are California’s “movers and shakers” in federal water policy for California.  Half of California’s water system — called the Central Valley Project — is owned and operated by the federal government.

Below is a summary of the positions of each of the candidates on water issues.  No endorsement of candidates is expressed or implied.

U.S. Senator at Large — California

Congressional District 4  – Northeastern California

Congressional District 21 – Central California