Jerry Brown – Page 2

Don’t Derail the Bullet Train Derailment

February 19, 2019 By Jon Coupal 6 Comments

Even before California’s High Speed Rail bond proposal appeared on the ballot in November 2008, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association commissioned a study in conjunction with the Reason Foundation because of deep concerns about the project’s viability. The study, published in September 2008, just prior to the election, confirmed our worst fears. Specifically, the executive summary of the nearly 200-page document warned:

“The CHSRA plans as currently proposed are likely to have very little relationship to what would eventually be built due to questionable ridership projections and cost assumptions, overly optimistic projections of ridership diversion from other modes of transport, insufficient attention to potential speed restrictions and safety issues and discounting of potential community or political opposition. Further, the system’s environmental benefits have been grossly exaggerated, especially with respect to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that have been associated with climate change.”

In the ensuing decade, it became increasingly clear that every negative prediction about the project came to be realized. Even initial advocates of the project, including a former chairman of the High Speed Rail Authority, turned against the costly boondoggle.

The capstone of criticism came at the end of 2018 when California’s own state auditor issued a scathing report excoriating the project’s mismanagement, waste and lack of transparency. To understand just how damning the HSR audit was, just consider the subtitle: “Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System’s Construction.”

To read the entire column, please click here.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CHSRA, Gavin Newsom, high speed rail, HJTA, Jerry Brown, Jon Coupal

Gavin Newsom Cuts Jerry Brown’s Twin Tunnels to One

February 14, 2019 By Joel B. Pollak 1 Comment

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday in his first “State of the State” address that he would be cutting the California WaterFix, also known as the “Twin Tunnels,” from two tunnels to one.

It was the second major blow to the legacy of his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, after Newsom announced just moments before that he was canceling the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plans to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The California WaterFix aims to route water from the Sacramento River underneath the California Delta directly to the pumping stations further south that supply water to the state and federal water projects, which in turn bring water to farmers and cities across the dry southern portion of the state. The diversion is intended to reduce risk to endangered fish populations in the Delta and to bring fresher, more reliable water to consumers downstream.

But the cost of the project continued to rise, reaching an estimated $17.1 billion last year, prompting speculation that the twin tunnels might have to be reduced to one. The project also provoked opposition — not just from local communities in the Delta who faced being surrounded by construction for years, but also from some farming and environmental groups who worried the tunnels would not actually reduce the rising salinity of water in the Delta.

Late last year, the entire project was put on hold when the Delta Stewardship Council, a state body that enforces compliance with an environmental management plan for the Delta, threatened to find that the Waterfix violated requirements. The state withdrew its certification for the tunnels, but planned to re-apply.

Then Newsom said Tuesday:

I do not support the Water Fix as currently configured. Meaning, I do not support the twin tunnels. But we can build on the important work that’s already been done. That’s why I do support a single tunnel.

The status quo is not an option.

We need to protect our water supply from earthquakes and rising sea levels, preserve delta fisheries, and meet the needs of cities and farms.

We have to get past the old binaries, like farmers versus environmentalists, or North versus South. Our approach can’t be “either/or.” It must be “yes/and.”

As the Sacramento Bee noted, Newsom’s decision would save money but also “likely means WaterFix would require a fresh set of environmental reviews before it can proceed, translating into additional delays for a project that’s been in the planning stage for more than a decade and will take an estimated 15 years to build.”

Newsom also announced that he was replacing the chair of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), Felicia Marcus. Marcus is a former attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and critics charged that she was too partial to environmental interests. Last year, she pushed through the Bay-Delta Plan, which restricts water from the San Joaquin River watershed to farms and cities, and has resulted in a slew of lawsuits. Newsom favored a more consultative approach, and has replaced Marcus with moderate Joaquin Estevel.

In his address, Newsom also pushed for a tax on drinking water to pay for water supply to disadvantaged communities.

The overall effect is to cancel, or cut, Gov. Jerry Brown’s most important legacy projects. Last December, before leaving office, Brown appeared before the Sacramento Press Club and “predicted that California’s high-speed rail project would be built, as would his ‘twin tunnels’ project to bring water from north to south,” Breitbart News reported at the time.

With his first speech to the legislature, Newsom has already undone Brown’s expectations.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, Twin Tunnels, WaterFix

State Threatens Encinitas With Lawsuit Over Housing Policy

February 12, 2019 By Chris Reed 12 Comments

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has put another coastal town on notice that it must meet state mandates to add a significant amount of units affordable by low-income families – reflecting the newly elected governor’s view that a lack of housing is one of California’s biggest problems.

In a Feb. 4 letter to the city of Encinitas, state housing official Zachary Olmstead said the city needed to ”amend or invalidate” a 2013 ordinance approved by voters that said developers had to get voters’ blessing if they wanted to increase the density of their projects or make zoning changes. The letter noted that this law and other city actions had the effect of blocking Encinitas from meeting state requirements that it add 1,141 affordable units. The city of 63,000 has few such units now.

While the Encinitas City Council once seemed as strongly anti-growth as the public, state threats under the Jerry Brown administration led the council in 2016 and 2018 to seek voters’ approval of what’s known as a Housing Element plan, failing both times. The plan is a formal document submitted to the state that outlines what projects will be built so that the city meets its commitment to “accommodate the housing needs of Californians of all economic levels.”

Like Huntington Beach, Encinitas could face lawsuit

Encinitas is the only city in San Diego County without a similar state-approved plan. It is among the richest cities in the country. As of the latest Zillow data, the median average home price is $1.05 million, and the latest RentCafe data puts the average monthly rent at $2,056.

While the 2013 city law targeted by the state has already been suspended until 2021 by a Superior Court judge as being pre-empted by state law, that wasn’t viewed as going far enough by state officials. Olmstead’s letter cited the cumulative effect of a “complex set of regulations” that make it impossible for new projects that would help the city comply with state requirements.

If Encinitas officials don’t change course, the letter warned that state grants might be withheld, including for transportation projects funded by the Legislature’s 2017 increase in state vehicle taxes – and that the Newsom administration would ask Attorney General Xavier Becerra to sue the city for defying state law.

In a case involving the same issues, the state and the city of Huntington Beach filed lawsuits against each other last month in Orange County over whether Huntington Beach is breaking state housing laws. Becerra says 2017 legislation passed in Sacramento clearly empowers his office to sue to enforce plainly written state mandates. Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, however, says as a charter city – one with its own voter-approved de facto constitution – Huntington Beach has the authority to reject some state edicts that infringe on the city’s right to self-govern its “municipal affairs.”

Can charter cities claim exemption from mandates?

A League of California Cities primer on the rights of charter cities offers ammunition for Huntington Beach’s claim. It notes that with “some exceptions,” charter cities control land-use and zoning decisions. But a 1975 Loyola University of Los Angeles Law Review analysis cited by the league said ambiguous language in state law left it unclear precisely when charter city ordinances took precedent on land-use issues.

Encinitas is a general law city not eligible for charter city protections from some types of state interference. But if Encinitas officials proposed and city voters approved a charter city amendment in a special election, Encinitas could become a charter city within months.

Last year, after disputes with the state, officials in Menlo Park in Silicon Valley considered a quick push for charter city status before putting the issue on hold for the time being.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Encinitas, Gavin Newsom, Housing, Housing affordability, Jerry Brown, Xavier Becerra

Can California Afford to Provide Universal Health Care Coverage?

February 1, 2019 By David Kersten 14 Comments

Perhaps no issue looms larger on both the state and national political stage than the question of universal health care coverage.

U.S. Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris (D) sent a shockwave through the national health care debate on Monday Jan. 28^th by nonchalantly stating that she would eliminate private insurers as a necessary part of implementing “Medicare-for-all,” according to a CNN report.

Due to a firestorm of attention, most of it negative, the next day the Harris campaign walked back the previous day’s remarks in large part by stating that the candidate would also be open to more moderate health reform plans, which would preserve the private industry, according to the CNN report.

Newly elected California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) campaigned on the issue of single-payer health care and on his very first day in office unveiled a comprehensive package of reform proposals aimed at expanding state health care coverage subsidies and lowering its costs, which includes extending Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants, according to a report by the LA Times.

In an interview, Gov. Newsom told the LA Times “These are not just symbolic gestures…We’re hoping to ignite a new conversation. It’s a moral imperative, not just economic,” states the LA Time report.

But as many experts, including Gov. Newsom, have pointed out, big systemic reform to the system, such as a move to a single-payer health system, would require the unlikely support of the Trump Administration.

Newsom has done a good job of tempering expectations for single-payer health care and his proposed coverage expansions and prescription cost controls demonstrate to the his supporters and the public that he is serious about expanding coverage as well containing costs.

But the 800-pound guerilla in the universal health care conversation is where will all the money come from to provide guaranteed government financed coverage to every Californian and everyone who likely to come to California once universal health care is guaranteed by the state?

“Where do you get the extra money? This is the whole question…I don’t even get it…how do you do that?,” said former California Governor Jerry Brown (D) following a universal healthcare discussion in Washington, D.C. in a 2017 interview with the LA Times.

At the time, Gov. Brown pointed out that the overall cost of medical care in California is equal to 18% of the state’s gross domestic product, which would be about $450 billion.

“You take a problem and say I’m going to solve it by something that’s an even bigger problem, which makes no sense,” then Governor Brown said at the time, according to the LA Times report.

Gov. Newsom developed some questionable rhetoric during the 2018 campaign, where he said that the State of California cannot afford not to move to a single-payer system because health care has become such a big expense in the state.

It appears that one of the major points of disagreement between former Gov. Brown and now Governor Gavin Newsom is the question of whether the State of California can afford to move to a universal health care system, specifically a single-payer system?

More recently, other high-profile liberal Democrats have come out against single-payer health care with former Mayor of New York City and billionaire Michael Bloomberg stating that Medicare-for-all “would bankrupt us for a very long time,” according to a CNN report.

“I think we could never afford that,” Bloomberg said, addressing pin factory employees in New Hampshire. “We are talking about trillions of dollars.”

“I think you could have Medicare-for-all people who are uncovered, but that’s a smaller group,” Bloomberg said.

“But to replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees would bankrupt us for a very long time,” said Bloomberg according to the CNN report, which noted that Bloomberg made the comments in response to Sen. Kamala Harris calling for an end to the private health care market.

So what does all this mean for the current universal health care debate in California?

It means that California Democrats might want to heed the advice of two of the county’s most prominent liberal Democrats—former Gov. Jerry Brown and Michael Bloomberg—and proceed with great caution regarding the feasibility of California going it alone on universal health care.

There is no question that the state could choose to enact a single-payer or Obamacare-type universal health care system, but the million dollar question, or trillion dollar question rather in this case, is would such a system work and be fiscally sustainable over the long-term?

As a long-time analyst of fiscal issues in California, I believe that former Gov. Jerry Brown and Michael Bloomberg are correct to point out the major challenges and risks of moving to a universal health care system—both at the state level and the federal level.

David Kersten is an independent political consultant who lives in the Bay Area. Kersten is also an adjunct professor of public budgeting at the University of San Francisco.

This article was originally published by Fox and Hounds Daily

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Gavin Newsom, Health care, Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris

Stop Letting Sacramento Fool Us

January 30, 2019 By Jon Coupal 1 Comment

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” so the saying goes. Unfortunately, California voters have been fooled (aka lied to) so many times by our political leaders that perhaps they have come to expect it. For a politician to actually keep his or her word is now the exception, not the rule.

And it’s not just voters who get fooled. Interest groups and other officials are often snookered by those with more political power. Several recent displays of this political behavior show beyond any doubt that promises made in Sacramento have an extraordinarily short shelf life.

The first example deals with California’s one-of-a-kind “cap and trade” law, a market-based regulatory system for incentivizing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Under this program, impacted industries must pay for emitting greenhouse gases by purchasing credits at auction. The program was set to expire in 2020, but in 2017 there was a big political push to extend “cap and trade” in a way that would impose another huge cost to refineries and utilities, which would then pass those costs to California drivers, truckers and electricity customers.

Surprisingly, many industries forced into the “cap-and-trade” auctions supported the extension. They did so because they were threatened by Gov. Jerry Brown, environmental extremists and powerful regulators that if they didn’t, they’d be hit with an alternative program run completely by the government bureaucrats at the California Air Resources Board. Taxpayer groups, small-business interests and most Republicans opposed the extension because it would further raise California’s already sky-high cost of living. In addition to the cost, there was nothing in the political deal that guaranteed CARB wouldn’t move forward with punishing regulations anyway. …

Click here to read the full article from the OC Register

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CARB, Jerry Brown, Jon Coupal

Spending Plans Will Run Up Against Fiscal Reality

January 24, 2019 By Steven Greenhut 4 Comments

Gavin Newsom was recently inaugurated as California’s 40th governor, taking over a general-fund budget that is flush with cash and a state government that is in remarkably good shape — at least superficially — from a fiscal perspective. For all his flaws, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown left Newsom with a $15 billion surplus and a rainy day fund that is nearly full. As an added plus, the economy that is humming along even though an erratic stock market points to storm clouds on the horizon.

The big question is whether Newsom will heed Brown’s advice and govern as if there’s always a recession around the corner — or ignore the former governor’s warnings about Democratic lawmakers who always say “yes” to any “harebrained” spending scheme. Unfortunately, based on Newsom’s inaugural words, initial budget and many of his early high-level administrative appointments, the safe money is on the latter. Newsom wants to spend big.

One need not read between the lines in Newsom’s introductory words. He spelled it out clearly. Newsom pointed to Brown’s inaugural address, which quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. There was the foolish man who built a house on sand and the wise man who built it on rock. “For eight years, California has built a foundation of rock,” Newsom said. “Our job now is not to rest on that foundation. It is to build our house upon it.”

So now that the state is on solid financial footing, the new governor envisions a rapid expansion of government social programs. “We will support parents so they can give their kids the love and care they need, especially in those critical early years when so much development occurs,” Newsom said. That speaks to the $1.8 billion in early childhood programs that the new governor is touting. The term “we,” of course, refers to California’s taxpayers.

“We will launch a Marshall Plan for affordable housing and lift up the fight against homelessness from a local matter to a state-wide mission,” he added. The term “Marshall Plan” is not subtle. That was the American financial assistance program to help Western Europe rebuild after the devastation of World War II, at a cost of $100 billion in current dollars.

Continuing the metaphor of California as a home, Newsom added that “In our home, every person should have access to quality, affordable health care.” He has long advocated for some type of universal healthcare coverage (although not necessarily the single-payer system that failed to make it through the Legislature in 2017), and some of his most noteworthy aides have a background in promoting government healthcare programs.

“Everyone in California should have a good job with fair pay,” he said. “Every child should have a great school and a teacher who is supported and respected. Every young person should be able to go to college without crushing debt or to get the training they need to compete and succeed. And every senior should be able to retire with security and live at home with dignity.” Those are vague, feel-good ideas that would garner few objections. But his ideas for implementing them, such as his bidget plan for free community college, will come with a hefty price tag.

There will be plenty of time to dissect the specific policy proposals that will move forward as the legislative session gets under way. For instance, the community college idea is a particularly bad one. California community colleges already are inexpensive. Making the second year of tuition “free” (the first year already is free for first-time California students) will only clog up the classrooms with free riders, thus making it tougher for those students who are serious about getting an education to get classes and improve their job prospects.

However, the main purpose of this article is to provide a warning amid the exuberance of a new gubernatorial administration. Basically, that financial foundation might be built less on rock and more on sand than many of us would like to believe.

There’s no complaining about the size of the budget surplus and rainy day fund, but there’s more to a budget than those items. As a comprehensive new California Policy Center report from Ed Ring and Marc Joffe points out, “We estimate that California’s total state and local government debt as of 6/30/2017 totaled just over $1.5 trillion. That total includes all outstanding bonds, loans, and other long-term liabilities, along with the officially reported unfunded liability for other post-employment benefits (primarily retiree healthcare), as well as unfunded pension liabilities.” That’s a 15-percent increase from two years ago—and a number that equals 54 percent of the gross state product.

The Brown administration had done little to deal with the unfunded liabilities. Its one major pension reform law, the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act, was exceedingly modest. In the waning days of his administration, Brown’s attorneys argued before the state Supreme Court for changes in the “California Rule,” which restricts the ability of governments to reduce pension benefits going forward. That’s still unresolved and Newsom already has made clear his opposition to changes in pensions—and one of his top aides comes out of the California Labor Federation.

Bottom line: Just because the general-fund budget is in good shape does not mean that California’s overall fiscal picture is all that bright. A responsible new administration would attempt to fix those problems, which are crowding out public services at the local and state level, before engaging in a spending spree that will add to the state burden. Newsom’s early budget hits $209 billion overall and includes a grabbag of new programs, although he does send money to pay off some pension debt and is bolstering the rainy day fund.

The outgoing governor increased taxes early and often. It’s unwise to add new burdens on taxpayers, especially given that economic boom times always are followed by a bust and many Californians continue to flee the state’s high tax burden. Newsom already is proposing new fees on water and 911 service.

California’s most notorious public-policy disasters have come, counter-intuitively, during the best fiscal times, when revenues were swelling and budgets were flush with cash. The best example came in 1999, when Gov. Gray Davis signed a law that caused a pension-hiking frenzy and led directly to the state’s debt crisis. The stock market was riding high and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) promised that increasing pensions by 50 percent retroactively wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime because market returns would cover the costs.

It didn’t cost a dime, but cost billions of dollars annually in general-fund payments and added hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer-backed liabilities. The biggest danger to California is now a governor who believes that the state is in such great financial shape that he can start spending with wild abandon. He will not be restrained by the Legislature, which now has strong Democratic super-majorities that are itching to spend money. We don’t want to wish for an economic downturn, a stock-market crash or another busted housing bubble, but that appears to be the only hope right now to derail the coming spending train.

This column was first published by the California Policy Center.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: budget, California budget, Gavin Newsom, Health care, Jerry Brown

California’s Doomsday Clock Getting Closer to Midnight

January 23, 2019 By Kerry Jackson 10 Comments

In 1947 a group of scientists unveiled the Doomsday Clock to show how near civilization was to a man-made catastrophic end. Maybe California should have its own doomsday clock, since it seems headed for a wreck.

Today’s official Doomsday Clock reads 11:58 pm, two minutes before disaster. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which manages the clock, cited “the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change” as the reason for the shortness of time.

By coincidence, Jerry Brown, who governed California for 16 years, is now that organization’s executive chairman. In taking the job, he quoted Manhattan Project director Robert Oppenheimer, who said “the whole world is going to hell.”

Some would argue that the world will have to wait because California is going to arrive first. They have a point. California long ago lost its way.

For instance, this state, once an epicenter of enterprise, continues to bleed businesses. Relocation specialist Joe Vranich figures about 13,000 businesses fled California from 2008 to 2016, and he expects the flight to pick up speed rather than slow.

California is losing people, as well, by the millions. Many who haven’t left yet are just waiting for an opening. A 2017 University of California-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found that 56 percent across the state have considered moving because of intolerable housing costs. One in four of those says “that if they did decide to move, they would most likely relocate out of state.”

Meanwhile, the state is a chosen destination for the wealthier and better-educated, according to a December Los Angeles Times report, even as millions of middle-class residents flee California’s high taxes, suffocating regulations, unaffordable housing costs, and some of the worst traffic (and roads) on Earth.

Attracting the bright and the affluent is certainly to California’s advantage. They arrive with capital, innovative thinking, experience, and the energy that helped them amass their wealth. But losing middle-class residents, including large numbers of young professionals, to other states, leaving California with only the extremely rich and the extremely poor, foretells a shaky future.

If California was losing its middle class to the upper class rather than to other states, this, too, would be an advantage. As former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Janet Yellen – and many others – has said, upward mobility “promotes a healthier economy.” But simply pulling out is a loss. Middle-class Californians who leave take with them their work ethic, their investment and consumption dollars, their inventive business ideas, and their human capital.

Of course the entire middle class isn’t trying to ditch California. Certainly not members of the state’s public-employee unions. It’s in their best interest to stay until they can start collecting their generous pensions, which, we might add, have multiplied the tax burden that’s obliging the middle class to seek refuge in other states.

Escaping California is a rational choice. It has arguably the heaviest tax burden in the country, and is constantly increasing it. Businesses are regulated as if they were subsidiaries of the state.

Accelerating the exodus is an intractable housing crisis. Prices are so high that many middle-class earners can’t afford to buy homes. In Los Angeles County, where more than one in four Californians lives, 92 percent of all homes, “are unaffordable to the average person.” Those who rent rather than purchase have to dedicate one-third to nearly one-half of their income to housing, depending on where they live.

Even so, they probably consider themselves fortunate. Many in California don’t even have a home. While the state makes up only 12 percent of the national population, 25 percent to 30 percent of the country’s homeless live here.

There are dozens of other California conventions that annoy, antagonize, confound, enrage, inconvenience, and eventually drive out, the “subjects” of California. To name a few, there’s the wholly unnecessary single-use plastic bag prohibition, a coming fossil fuel ban to serve a political agenda, and a spiteful disregard for federal immigration law. There’s also the man-made drought,punishing gasoline prices, the menace of a future single-payer health care system, the political indoctrination taking place in public school classrooms, and a crusade to outlaw gasoline and diesel vehicles, to name a few more.

Is California “on the verge of becoming,” as Richard Colman has suggested, “a failed state” that’s “on the brink of collapse”? While the state’s doomsday clock rapidly approaches midnight, we haven’t run out of time yet. It is, however, getting late.

Kerry Jackson is a senior fellow with the Center for California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown

Are Water Rights Sufficient to Protect Water Users?

January 20, 2019 By Mike Wade 14 Comments

“The judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in Elimra, New York in 1907.

That quote exemplifies the reason that five irrigation districts on tributaries to the San Joaquin River as well as the city of San Francisco filed lawsuits recently against the State Water Resources Control Board. They are defending their water rights.

In December, ahead of the Water Board hearing, Governor Brown and Governor-elect Newsom both asked the Water Board to hold off and let the districts, the State, and the federal government finalize the voluntary agreements. But that didn’t happen and the problem is now in Governor Newsom’s lap as his Water Board will likely have to turn its attention to defending its decision in court.

“We file suit not because we prefer conflict over collaboration. On the contrary, we continue to encourage and participate in settlement discussions on our rivers, and support science on the Stanislaus. But we also have an indisputable responsibility to reserve our legal rights and protect our ag and urban customers,” said Peter Rietkerk, General Manager of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID).

Unfortunately, sometimes, the courts are your only recourse.

The State Water Board’s decision on December 12, 2018 doubles the amount of water the State will take away from farms growing food, the parks and sporting fields where our children play, and even the water we drink from our taps at home and bubbling out of drinking fountains at schools. And if flow requirements can be imposed on the San Joaquin River they can be imposed anywhere.

The sad thing is there was an alternative available, but the Board has so far rejected it. Farmers in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, irrigation districts, the Department of Water Resources, Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Bureau of Reclamation, worked collaboratively at the behest of both Governors Brown and Newsom, to propose a voluntary plan designed to quickly accomplish more for fish and the environment without the drastic harm water users expect from the water cuts.

Under these proposals farms and cities would still give up billions of gallons of water to the river during times that science tells us that it’s needed, as well as implement projects that improve habitat for fish, reduce predators and enhance ecosystems far beyond what the Board’s water-only plan could achieve. The voluntary proposals, expected to produce more salmon than the plan adopted by the State Water Board with less harm to the economy, would have been a win for all – farms, fish and folks.

“Our voluntary agreement will ensure water security and reliability, includes environmental improvements, enhances fish populations far beyond what is projected in the state’s current plan and most importantly, guarantees timely implementation,” said Modesto Irrigation District Board Vice President John Mensinger. “Their (the Board’s) plan threatens not only Central Valley ag and urban water users, but also the water supply of more than two million people living in the Bay Area.”

There is still an opportunity for the Water Board to adopt a voluntary path toward ecosystem restoration and faster solutions to restore dwindling salmon populations. The question is, will they do it or will former Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes words be put to the test again?

Mike Wade is Executive Director, California Farm Water Coalition.