Emerging statistics have revealed that California’s extension of drivers licenses to unlawful immigrants aroused unexpected demand — with no end in sight.

“While state officials expected 1.4 million undocumented immigrants to apply for licenses in the first three years, in the first six months since the law has been enacted more than 1.1 million undocumented immigrants have so far taken the written test, and another 436,000 have taken the driving test,” reported Fox News Latino.

“During the first six months that the Safe Driver and Responsibility Act — or AB 60 — went into effect, the Department of Motor Vehicles saw more than 600,000 applications from undocumented immigrants,” the Los Angeles Daily News observed. DMV officials announced that, in the first half of the year, some 397,000 licenses have been issued to unlawfully present immigrants — half the total of roughly 759,000 licenses issued, according to the Associated Press.

And according to officials, the robust numbers were only the beginning. “An estimated 1.5 million applications from undocumented immigrants are expected to be processed over the next three years,” the Daily News confirmed.

Partial identification

The rules for the special licenses were crafted to strike what seemed to be an inviting compromise. “The new license is marked differently than those issued to other drivers in the state and is not considered a valid form of federal identification, for example, to board an airplane,” AP added. “Applicants must pass driving tests and show proof of residency and identity” — the same documents as lawful immigrants and citizens, as KCRA noted.

But the license’s limited use as a form of identification underscored how California’s effort to bring unlawful immigrants out of the shadows plunged them into a different kind of gray area. In addition to what has often proven to be a steep learning curve, with many struggling to pass the written exam, applicants have had to take “a leap of faith that government officials won’t use immigration status against an applicant,” KCRA pointed out.

That teed up the kind of potential conflict playing out now between California’s so-called “sanctuary cities” and its Congressional delegation. As National Journal reported, Sen. Dianne Feinstein “has pledged to make a legislative push” to rein in Californian leniency. In one sign of the rising stakes, National Journal continued, “Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has come out in support of limiting the power of officials in sanctuary cities.”

Looking for evidence

Nevertheless, support for the licenses appeared to be strong enough to sustain the program. As activist organizations that pushed for the changes had noted, until 1994, “immigrants had access to a driver’s license in California, regardless of immigration status,” according to Drive CA, one such group. In that sense, AB 60 marked a return to the old status quo.

On the other hand, California’s population of illegal immigrants rose profoundly over the ensuing decades. Activists have used that fact to advance the argument that too many unlicensed immigrants on the roads present a peril to all drivers. 

“Supporters of the law say giving licenses to people regardless of their immigration status makes the roads safer for everyone,” as AP recalled. Authorized drivers, the logic ran, would be more likely to operate well-maintained cars, and to obey traffic laws without trying to evade detection. But the debate over whether the program made roads safer has had to wait for more data. As Fox News Latino noted, “the California Department of Insurance does not have data available on whether the boom in new license-seekers has led to increased auto insurance sales, but anecdotal evidence does appear to show a slight uptick in people buying car insurance.” Californians will have to await additional information on how many licensed unlawful immigrants have been involved in vehicle collisions.

BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons

With gripping yet measured words, Jim Steinle — whose daughter was recently slain in San Francisco by an unlawful immigrant released under the city’s rules — urged Congress to quickly pass new reforms.

“While Steinle was careful to acknowledge that the nation’s immigration laws were complicated, he made it clear that his family wants to see legislation ‘to take these undocumented immigrant felons off our streets for good,” Politico reported.

“Unfortunately, due to disjointed laws and basic incompetence on many levels, the U.S. has suffered a self-inflicted wound in the murder of our daughter by the hand of a person that should have never been on the streets in this country. We would be proud to see Kate’s name associated with some of this new legislation,” he said.

Steinle wasn’t alone on Capitol Hill. According to the Associated Press, he “testified alongside several other relatives of people allegedly killed by immigrants living in the country illegally.” As their testimony drew swift headlines, members of Congress hastened to show their responsiveness to the brewing controversy. “Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle offered bills to crack down on the hundreds of ‘sanctuary’ communities like San Francisco and Santa Clara County that have openly defied federal immigration enforcement, while officials in those communities vowed more cooperation,” the San Jose Mercury News noted.

Bipartisan reactions

Not every player involved in the debate over illegal immigration shifted toward a more hawkish stance, however. Activists, predictably, urged caution. In a letter to members of Congress obtained by Politico, a coalition of groups including the National Immigration Law Center and United We Dream warned against sweeping changes to the current patchwork regime.

“Good policies are made over time, by examining our shared values and opinions, and by working toward equality and justice for all people. They are not made based on a single, tragic incident or by taking the actions of one individual to justify a policy that criminalizes an entire community,” they wrote.

Some free-market groups issued warnings of their own, discouraging lawmakers from buying in to rhetoric that presents unlawful immigrants as especially prone to break other laws. A new report from the Immigration Policy Center, for instance, which compared crime statistics to rates of unauthorized immigration, drew favorable notice in a Wall Street Journal editorial by Manhattan Institute scholar Jason Riley.

Between 1990 and 2013, Riley noted, although the population of illegal immigrants “more than tripled” to over 11 million, “FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48%,” according to the study — a figure “which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41%, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.”

Last year 19 of California’s 55 members of the U.S. Congress drew pensions from a state-backed public retirement plan, according to a CalWatchdog.com analysis of financial disclosures for the year 2013.

Payments from 2013 – the last reported year available – came from municipal, education and state pension funds and ranged from annual payouts of $3,800 to $70,000. Four members take payments from two or more public pension funds.

The top recipient was Rep. Lois Capps, who collected a total of $70,049 in 2013 – $20,615 from the California State Teachers Retirement System and $49,434 from the University of California Retirement System.

The 77-year-old lawmaker from Santa Barbara is a former instructor at Santa Barbara City College. Capps has been receiving the dual pensions since 1998, when she first was elected.

Members of Congress receive a salary of $174,000. They are not prohibited from taking their taxpayer-subsidized retirement while serving in Washington.

Taking a state pension while serving in Congress is hardly noticed “because it happens in so many different layers that people aren’t tracking it,” said Steve Ellis, vice president for the Washington D.C.-based Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“And besides, the people who are getting this kind of information are the people who would be getting these payments in the future.”

He added that the system has no rules prohibiting what detractors call “double-dipping.”

“All of us are paying two sets of employees, one working and one retired,” Ellis said.

Executive benefits

But pensions are part of the compensation package, like any job in the private sector, insists Steve Maviglio, a California political consultant who represents unions that back public pensions.

“It’s like an executive who hops from one job to another,” Maviglio said. “Should they have to give up the benefits from a previous job?”

Besides, he said, “We’re trying to attract the best and the brightest to be public servants and if they are forced to give up the benefits they’ve earned at a previous job, it would kill that incentive [to serve].”

In addition to the 19 pensioners in the state’s Washington delegation, nine members note on their disclosures that they hold an interest in a public pension but are not yet taking the money.

The pension funds tapped include the County of San Mateo, which paid Rep. Anna Eshoo $12,020 for her time on the board of supervisors from 1982 to 1992; and Marin County, where Sen. Barbara Boxer drew $4,456 for serving on the county board of supervisors from 1976 to 1982. Boxer has announced her retirement beginning in Jan. 2017.

Rep. Scott Peters, 56, who served on the San Diego City Council from 2000 to 2008, noted on his disclosure that he received a $20,703 annual pension from the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, but donated it to the San Diego Library Department.

CalPERS and CalSTRS

The majority of the pension draws came from the state’s California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which administers the Legislators’ Retirement System. CalPERS covers members of the statehouse first elected prior to Nov. 1990, when voters passed Proposition 140. The initiative canceled pensions for future legislators and imposed term limits. The California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 took effect in January 2013 and greatly altered the plan, as well as major educator pension arrangements.

The California State Teachers Retirement System also is a major provider of pension income for U.S. lawmakers. And some, such as Rep. Michael Honda, get something from both sources.

Honda, 73, reported income of $38,135 from CalSTRS and $13,393 from CalPERS, plus $12,754 from the teacher system as part of a deceased-spouse family allowance.

Still others have not yet tapped their pension funds and report the accrued benefits as unearned income or an asset. Those funds are allowed to be reported in a broad range as the asset is seen with the potential for growth or reduction.

Rep. Judy Chu reports her pension with CalSTRS has a value of between $100,001 and $250,000 and her CalPERS fund between $1,001 and $15,000.

Chu, 61, served on the Monterey Park City Council and taught in the Los Angeles Community College District.

Rep. Tony Cardenas reported he will receive a pension from the city of Los Angeles when he turns 55, in 2018. His payout, he noted, is an “undetermined amount.”

Some members of the California delegation have seen their payments grow over the years at a rate outpacing standard interest returns for their funds.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s $55,690 pension payout in 2013 from her days as a member of the Board of Supervisors and mayor of San Francisco has grown 36 percent since 2002, when she collected $40,929. Her draw is based on 18 years of work ending in 1988. Her 2002 pension pay was equal to between $53,000 and $62,500 in 2013, according to a relative-worth calculation.

Feinstein, 81, first was elected to San Francisco city office in 1969.

Then there are the benefits that are too good to give up.

Even though federal lawmakers are privy to some generous health insurance, including dental care, former Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who retired in 2013 after 20 years in Congress, reported she still carried her vision and dental care from her days as a member of the Petaluma City Council from 1984 to 1993.

Steve Miller can be reached at: 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is: http://avalanche50.com/.

But even if the bill didn’t face certain drowning in the U.S. Senate, President Obama has pledged to veto it. So drought relief floats into 2015, when Republicans will add to their control of the House the control of the Senate.

What happened? Acrimony between Democrats and Republicans in the House poisoned the well in the Senate. Every California Democrat in the House whose district includes parts of the Delta region voted to reject the bill. As the Sacramento Bee reported, “These Democrats say they were cut out from the negotiations. At one point, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., said House Republicans refused to brief California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer when she insisted on inviting House Democrats.”

Behind closed doors earlier this year, Feinstein secretly had carried out painstaking negotiations with California’s Republican delegation to the House of Representatives. Last month, Democrats and environmental activists pushed Feinstein to abandon her own water bill.

Last-minute labors

Despite the problems in the Senate and over the  objections of environmentalists, California Republicans introduced the California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014. It was sponsored by Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, who was joined by Rep. Doug LaMalfa of Redding, Rep. Ken Calvert of Riverside and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. McCarthy has made the bill a top priority as the 2014 legislative session hastened to a close.

The bill cleared the minimum bar for bipartisanship by including Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, among its co-sponsors.

But Feinstein’s troubles with Democrats drowned out bipartisanship. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has forcefully condemned the new bill. According to KPCC:

“LaMalfa says the legislation reflects agreements on particular issues they reached with Senator Feinstein.

“‘Some of our other Senators are standing in the way of that,’ says LaMalfa, a reference to Boxer, who heads the Senate environment committee.”

But Feinstein will be expected by Democrats to use her power in the Senate to sink the House bill — even though it includes language from the draft legislation she negotiated with the California Republicans in the first place.

Hoping to navigate the controversy without further embarrassment, Feinstein was restrained in her comments. “It’s my hope that we’ll reach agreement on legislation that can pass both the House and the Senate and enact a bill that moves water to Californians suffering from the drought and helps all of the state while not waiving environmental protections,” she said, according to the Bee.

As the San Francisco Chronicle observed, however, Feinstein made clear she favored acting quickly because of her diminished clout in next year’s Congress, when Democrats switch from majority to minority status.

Remarkably, Sen. Boxer had co-sponsored with Feinstein the Senate bill that became the basis of Feinstein’s negotiations with California’s House Republicans. But environmentalists and other liberal activists will find it harder to criticize Feinstein or Boxer as their legislative influence fades.

Troubled waters

For Republicans, that has put drought relief on the agenda for 2015.

Obama likely will be inclined to veto a bill next year as well. But he will face an emboldened Republican majority and a weakened delegation of California Democrats.

He also will have much on his agenda in other areas over which to battle Republicans: the budget, taxes, immigration, wars and crime.

As President Clinton  showed when Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, sometimes it’s easier for a president to cut deals with the other party when it’s in the majority, than to deal with intramural struggles within his own party.

Meanwhile, 3,000 miles from Washington, despite the recent rains, California still needs drought relief.

After working all year with Republicans for a compromise, this week Feinstein encountered surprise opposition from her own political base. In fact, her very willingness to work with Senate Republicans prompted cries from liberals and environmentalists that her bill would benefit corporations more than drought-stricken Californians.

As the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine reported, Feinstein’s bill concerned “management of the Central Valley Project, a federally owned irrigation system that moves water from California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range to farmland in the state’s main growing region, the Central Valley.” There, water flows controlled by the federal government — not Sacramento — have become essential interests to California’s large almond and pistachio growers.

As California’s drought has persisted, the size of their crop has attracted the attention of observers around the country and the world: 82 percent of earth’s almonds are grown in the Golden State, along with 98 percent of America’s pistachios. With foreign demand for California nuts rising, any substantial reduction in output would not only cause economic problems in the U.S.; it would reverberate overseas as well.

A secret saga

As Mother Jones further reported, political jockeying over federally controlled California water has been playing out all year in Washington, D.C. California Republicans in Congress sought to roll back relatively tight federal requirements on usage, drawing fire from Gov. Jerry Brown and a vow from president Barack Obama of a veto.

Feinstein shook up the predictable partisan battle lines, however, when she entered into careful and quiet negotiations with Central Valley Republicans in the House of Representatives. She recognized their constituents — the growers single-handedly propping up large sectors of the global nut market — were key to any federal reorganization of California water use. She then sidestepped largely Democratic representatives in San Joaquin Delta districts.

The outcry from those House members was summed up by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, who said Feinstein’s approach was “wrong” and “not the way to do this.”

Quickly, Feinstein’s controlled negotiations became a political problem. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “confidential drafts” of her legislation “leaked out last week,” prompting alarm among her Senate colleagues, according to unnamed Democratic lawmakers. Making matters worse, “Bay Area members, along with fishing and environmental groups, began putting pressure on” her Democratic colleague from California, Sen. Barbara Boxer, to intervene. “They feared that Feinstein was trying to rush through legislation they had not seen and which had not been subjected to committee scrutiny.”

An anonymous Republican source told the Chronicle that Feinstein’s response — yanking the bill — spread shock through GOP negotiators. “We were 99 percent there,” the source said. “Out of the blue, members started receiving calls” from Feinstein explaining the deal was dead and negotiations were over.

According to the Chronicle, Feinstein will present a new bill in January — “under ‘regular order,’ which involves an open committee process and public debate.” By then, Feinstein will be in the minority party as Republicans take over control of the Senate after their Nov. 4 electoral victories.

Richard Bloom

As if the water wars weren’t enough, Feinstein was confronted with indirect criticism from some fellow Democrats over her husband, Richard Bloom, a businessman and regent for the University of California.

In the fracas over a tuition hike supported by UC President Janet Napolitano, Newsweek reported, Bloom took the side of fellow regents who believed that “paying faculty and executives higher salaries is essential to competing with elite private universities for talent.”

That provoked the fury of Brown, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “I want to point out that you run an investment banking industry and this is a public university,” Brown told Bloom. “This is not Wall Street. This is the University of California. The public university has as its mission public service.”

Nonetheless, the tuition hikes went through on a 14-7 vote of the regents. But as CalWatchdog.com reported, Brown is resourceful and the intramural Democratic tuition battle is far from over.

Losing Democratic majority status in the Senate; having her water bill fall through; a Brown-Bloom rift over tuition. The next year looks to be nothing but headaches for California’s long-serving senior senator.

Although California’s congressional Democrats have made a substantial mark on politics, their vigor has run up against one obstacle that even popularity can’t remove: Age. Sen. Barbara Boxer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both turned 74 years old; Sen. Dianne Feinstein turned 81.

Traditionally, younger legislative leaders have not had to worry much about unfavorable election cycles that leave them in office. For Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi, however, their decades in office have left little time to wait for Democrats to recover Congress.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, while Pelosi has determined to press on as House Democratic leader, Boxer and Feinstein must both surrender influential positions they have likely lost the opportunity to recover. Boxer has lost her control of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Even more important, Feinstein has had to surrender her control of the Intelligence Committee. Although some Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul, have led observers to think Feinstein’s interest in oversight of the CIA and other agencies will be maintained or even expanded, the loss of her prominence has reminded Democrats that the generational turnover created by this month’s GOP wave could well be permanent.

Eyeing the door

California’s two senators have also encountered an unaccustomed shift in public opinion. Boxer has intensified suspicion that she will retire instead of seek re-election in 2016. Recently, according to the Chronicle, “she told reporters that she has served half her Senate career in the minority and half in the majority, and learned that ‘I really like the majority much better. Much, much better.'”

Boxer did not cite any polls, but her remarks underscore that most Californians have begun to consider it’s time for fresh representation. In new polling conducted by USC Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times, in-state voters have indicated that Feinstein’s future is also at stake.

According to the Times, nearly 60 percent of registered voters preferred that both senators be replaced next time around, saying California “would be better off with new candidates for the two seats.” Perhaps predictably, a preponderance of respondents who identified themselves as Republicans agreed — almost 80 percent.

“But even many Democrats said it was time for new representation,” reported the Times, with 44 percent preferring new candidates — more than the 43 percent that favored Boxer and Feinstein again.

A new playing field

Few political analysts suggested that Boxer, Feinstein or Pelosi have become politically weak. Pelosi’s fundraising prowess and the established electoral advantage of California’s senators would be too daunting to overcome even for a Democratic primary challenger. Nevertheless, more plausible candidates from both parties could emerge over the next year if and when it becomes clear they would run for open seats.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats have gone out of their way to indicate a willingness to work constructively in the new GOP-led political landscape. Feinstein recently pronounced her respect for incoming Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr, R-N.C.

And Boxer was able to work with her replacement, James Inhofe, R-Okla., on a previous transportation bill, according to Southern California Public Radio.

With GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy set to return as House majority leader, California Democrats have set their hopes on playing a role in legislation by keeping attention focused on statewide issues that matter to Washington.

Escaping the snow-stormy Northeast, also on Wednesday U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, held a drought rally with fellow Republicans in Kern County. ABC News in Fresno reported:

“From Washington D.C. to the fallow cotton field in Bakersfield, House Speaker John Boehner stood up next to Central Valley Congressmen Devin Nunes, David Valadao, and Kevin McCarthy who all support the proposed legislation to stop river restoration in favor of drought relief.

“‘How you can favor a fish over people is something the people in my part of the world would not understand,’ said Boehner.”

Here’s what’s behind the headlines. The specifics aren’t clear, but what’s known so far is that a new bill by Nunes, so far without a number, would revive his H.R. 1837, the San Joaquin River Valley Water Reliability Act of 2012.

H.R. 1837 did not pass. But it tried to repeal H.R. 146, San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act of 2009, by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Her bill emphasized the environment over local water allocation. (H.R. 146 originated as battle landmarks legislation, but was modified; hence the “H.R.,” House Resolution, designation, instead of “S.” for Senate Resolution.)

The correlation of political forces changed in the past three years, with the drought striking California and with Democrats worried about losing California House seats in November. (No California U.S. Senate seat is open this year.)

Additionally, Nunes’ bill would create a joint House-Senate committee on California’s drought problems that would take control of federal water transfers to the State Water Project by usurping Brown’s new Drought Task Force.

Republicans usually push “federalism” and local control, but are using the drought for federal power to trump state power.

Rally

Will the GOP rally actually bring more water to Californians? A sharp response was given by Bakersfield Californian reporter Lois Henry in a video interview given at the rally. She is widely regarded as a frank and independent voice on California’s water situation. She said:

“No!  So far what they have described has already been pushed in the House by Devin Nunes numerous times and died at the Senate every time…. This is mainly something to put pressure on Dianne Feinstein.  This is her home state.  This is affecting her constituents as well…. They are serious about pushing this bill, but this is really something to push Dianne Feinstein…. The devil is in the details of the new bill proposed by Nunes and thus far there are no details.”

Henry was skeptical that another new bill proposed by Nunes would work. Even if it passed, she warned, it would invite endless lawsuits. “We will see snow in the Sierras before we will see that bill passed,” she quipped.

And Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, branded the proposed GOP bill “misguided” and “dangerous.”

Court settlement

Feinstein’s bill, H.R. 146, was intended to comply with a court-ordered settlement 18 years ago to restore salmon runs along the San Joaquin River by diverting water from farmers. H.R. 146 requires farmers to pay for up to $800 million of river restoration costs from higher farm water rates; $180 million will be collected from farmers by 2014.

California was to pay $200 million of this cost from two water bonds voters passed in 2006: Proposition 84, $5.4 billion; and Proposition 1E, $4 billion.  However, the propositions did not provide for drought relief for farmers.

The court settlement requires 247,000 acre-feet of water to be diverted from farmers in dry years and about 356,000 acre-feet of water in wet years.  That would be roughly enough water to irrigate from 82,333 to 118,667 acres of farmland each year.

A provision in H.R. 146 to allocate $102 million of funds collected from farmers’ higher water rates to replenish lost farm water has never been implemented.

As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Tom Nassif, president of Western Growers, charged federal regulators worsened the situation last year “by failing to pump and store 800,000 acre-feet of water runoff” by letting it run to the sea.

And in a statement released at the drought rally, he urged, “It’s time for Congress to act.”

What is particularly aggravating to Central Valley farmers is that their allocation of water this year has been cut back by 95 percent after they have paid $180 million for more fresh water for fish, even though the water ended up flowing to the Pacific Ocean.  Farmers have ended up paying for their own demise.

Explosive crisis

State Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, said in an interview that it was only a matter of time before the farm economy is dead; that it won’t be long before many Northern California communities that normally don’t suffer from droughts are going to be parched right behind the farmers; and that there is no contingency plan for providing for a drought of this kind.

She said it’s embarrassing that President Obama has not even responded to the letters from Republican state legislators calling for immediate action. And she said that, even if Brown suspended California’s environmental laws to aid in drought relief actions, that federal environmental laws also would have to be suspended.

She warned, “It is only a very short time before this crisis explodes.”

By Wayne Lusvardi

For some time environmentalists and have been telling fish stories that Central Valley farmers are dodging timely repayment of the costs to build the massive Central Valley Project.  But it is the fish, not the farmers, that are not paying their fair share of the costs of the massive Central Valley Water Project.

The CVP was built in the 1930’s at a cost of $1.3 billion. The CVP is not the same as the California 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.

The CVP also delivers water to cities and for wildlife refuges.

CVP was Depression Era Project

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.  The federal government built the separate CVP water system mostly to supply water to farmers, and to reduce disputes between farms and cities.

But with the rise of environmentalism in the 1990s, farm water began to be diverted to “wildlife refuges.” The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reports that there were no deficiencies in water deliveries for farms until the 1990s.  The CVP carries water to the Sacramento Delta, which is pending a massive re-engineering called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. 

The enacting Reclamation Law for the CVP required farmers to repay only the principal amount of the bonds, not interest, as long as they met the 960-acre limitation (1.2 square miles). Large corporations don’t get most of the water subsidies from the CVP. Individuals or families own 80 percent of California’s 64,000 farms.

The only water subsidy small farmers receive is the foregone interest on the bonds. Large corporate farms must pay their share of the full cost of the CVP, including interest, to receive their CVP water allocations.

CVP repayment audit

Congress ordered an audit of repayment for the costs of the CVP by farmers, which was completed in March 2013.  The audit, titled Central Valley Project California: Repayment Status and Payoff, indicated the bonds have 18 years remaining until repayment in 2030. But repayments are not keeping up with the repayment schedule due to the variability of water deliveries needed to generate agricultural product sales to meet contractual payments.

In 2011, CVP water diverted for wildlife refuges only amounted to 6.5 percent of total CVP water deliveries (388,488 out of 5,886,610 acre-feet of water). But it is apparently large water users that are being disproportionately hit with reductions in water deliveries, resulting in repayments lagging behind schedule.  As the audit report of the Office of the U.S. Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Interior states:

“To identify why repayment progress was not satisfactory, we reviewed water rate calculations and payment information for four irrigation contractors. We determined that for the 3-year period from 2008 to 2010, actual water delivered to these contractors was only 41 percent of estimated water deliveries used to calculate their contract water rate. The variance in water deliveries resulted in a $45 million shortfall in the contractors’ repayment of capital costs that USBR must recover in future years through rate increases. In the case of one contractor, we estimated that by 2030, their CVP water rate could more than double if current trends continue” (last paragraph on page 6). 

Contrary to the notion that large corporate farms are receiving larger farm water subsidies, their CVP payments face the prospect of doubling.

Farmers can fish, but fish can’t farm

In 2009, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both California Democrats, snuck their $1 billion San Joaquin River Restoration Project bill through Congress as a rider to the larger Omnibus Public Lands Bill (H.R. 146).  However, this rider bill only funded initial research costs and not implementation.  To fund implementation, the Feinstein-Boxer bill proposed to partly fund the costs of the river restoration project by accelerating the repayment of CVP project costs on the backs of Friant water users.

The Friant Water Authority depends on CVP water from the Friant Dam near Fresno and Madera Counties.

However, since coming back into the majority in 2011, Republicans in the House of Representatives have blocked Congressional funding of the San Joaquin River Restoration Project.

The bottom line to the fish story about farmers reneging on timely repayment of CVP costs is that fish don’t have any money to make payments, but farmers do.  If Congress wants farmers to pay more to repay CVP costs on schedule, all it has to do is to quit reducing water deliveries to Central Valley farmers. Then farmers will pay for river restoration projects jobs programs.

Congress created this problem and also has the solutions in its own hands. To solve the problem of slow CVP payments, politicians and environmentalists first need to stop making up fish stories about how farmers are reneging on their CVP payments.

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 Wayne Lusvardi

As with the fish eating Jonah in the Bible story, salmon now are eating California farmers.

The San Joaquin River is California’s longest river, running 366 miles from the Sierra Nevadas through the Central Valley, then flowing out into San Francisco Bay.

According a recent green account by environmentalists recited in the Los Angeles Times, the San Joaquin River’s Chinook salmon, “once numbered in the hundreds of thousands … were so plentiful that farmers fed them to hogs … and settlers were kept awake at night by splashing fish as they struggled upstream to their spawning grounds.”

The reality of the old San Joaquin River was ugly: periodic natural flooding — called the “June Rise” — made the San Joaquin area an inland sea that “drowned” salmon, wiped out cropland, and destroyed human structures and life.  Historically, salmon runs have boomed and busted over the centuries due to natural — not man-made — climate-change cycles.  Dikes and dams built by farm irrigation districts were the only way that massive flooding was contained.  But farmers are now being shaken down for their share of river water purportedly to restore salmon runs (and green jobs) to the seasonal dry portion of the San Joaquin River. 

Environmentalists armed with court orders want to restore the dry portions of the river purportedly to renew the salmon runs.  But the real story is not about the fish at all. It is about how environmental jobs programs are pushing farmers out of the dry reach of the San Joaquin River.

Photo ops for jobs funding

The Times story, “In a long, dry stretch of the San Joaquin, a sign of hope for salmon,” tells how environmentalists have experimentally relocated 104 salmon by tanker truck to the upper river to see if the fish would spawn there.  Fish biologists are reported giddy over discovering 11 salmon nests, called REDDs.   But this is not so much an experiment as it is a photo op for continuing the funding for environmentalists jobs.  Quipped Cannon Michael, the vice president of a local farm company,  “You get the same photo ops by trapping fish.”

What environmentalists are using the photo ops for is to push Congress into funding U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s $1 billion San Joaquin River Restoration Act that is stalled in Congress because of the sequestration budget cutbacks. The San Joaquin River Restoration Project is essentially a redevelopment program to create 11,000 jobs.

Ninety percent of these jobs, about 9,900 jobs, would be temporary construction jobs.  Six percent of the jobs, or 660 of them, would be long-term government-funded fish monitoring jobs.  The remaining 4 percent of jobs, or 440 jobs, would be in tourism, river real estate sales, and tourist-related retail business.  These jobs would not appear for another 10 or 15 years, however.

In other words, 60 percent of the permanent jobs would be for artificial green jobs funded by government and 40 percent would go to commercial businesses related to restoring the flows of the river along the old San Joaquin river bed. The cost per private sector permanent job created maybe 10 years from now would be more than $2 million per job.

Restoring salmon runs to the San Joaquin River is superfluous because the proposed Klamath River “wilding” and dam removal project would end up bringing salmon back into California’s rivers anyway.

As sure as salmon migrate back and forth from the ocean to upstream spawning grounds, real estate speculation, residential subdivision, and tourism will drive out farming.  But right now all this is being touted as “river restoration.”

River restoration making salty farmland 

The L.A. Times reports how releasing upstream water from Friant Dam to restore river flows for salmon runs has created seepage under farm fields near the river. That caused high salt content of the water and the ruination of crops and, worse, the cropland.   Farmers have had to install interceptor drains at a cost of $250,000 each, paid for by higher Central Valley agricultural water rates.

The article fails to explain how, if there is no river water for irrigation, farming has thrived along the dry portion of the San Joaquin River.

The reason: The introduction of reliable water pumps and hydroelectric power in the 1920s allowed farmers to reclaim former salt-accumulated land for irrigated farmland by tapping large underground water tables.

But large-scale water resource redevelopment plans along the San Joaquin River have not included salt management.  So Central Valley farmers are having their irrigation water allocation reduced and having their water rates increased to pay for farmers who have been negatively impacted by rising soil salinity along the dry portions of the San Joaquin River.

Regulate first, think later

The assumption by politicians is that the San Joaquin River can be re-engineered so that irrigated farming and artificial fish monitoring jobs, tourism, and water-oriented real estate development can all coexist.  But as the Wall Street Journal has recently pointed out, the guiding principle of California policy is “regulate first, think later.”   Applied to the proposed San Joaquin River restoration, this might be re-stated: create artificial jobs programs first, deal with the consequences to farmers later.

But then it might be too late to “restore” farming later due to high land salinity.  Or the costs of de-salinizing farmland might be prohibitive.  And the speculative commercial fishing, tourism, and real estate development businesses that might replace farming would be highly prone to economic cycles and unsustainability.

This is why salmon are eating farm jobs along the San Joaquin River.  And why in California the “fish catches the man.”