Policies
pushed by environmental extremists have now taken deep root in the Central
Valley, especially due to the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992
(the George Miller/Bill Bradley bill), destructive court rulings based on the
Endangered Species Act, and the San Joaquin River Settlement of 2009. The
devastating results of these policies are now undeniable – the Valley is
suffering from a permanent government-made drought.
A
bill that would have rectified this situation – the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Valley Water Reliability Act (H.R. 1837) – was approved by the House of
Representatives in 2012 but did not pass the Senate due to opposition from both
California senators and from Governor Brown.
The
current impasse on water is the result of a deliberate campaign to pit water
districts and local officials against one another, and to create a giant,
impenetrable bureaucracy around the issue that insulates our senators and
governor from the political consequences of this disaster.
In
light of the dire threat the drought poses to Valley agriculture and to Valley
life in general, our senators and Governor Brown must either work to pass the
reforms from H.R. 1837 or explain to Californians how they intend to mitigate
this calamity. Ultimately, it will take federal law to fix the problem; without
Senate support for a comprehensive water bill that gains President Obama’s
signature, there will be no relief from current conditions outside of
flood-level rainfall.
