Once again, political backroom deals have locked out those stakeholders most affected by the proposed water legislation.  Previews are circulating Sacramento but are not made available to the people, companies and organizations who will have to live with the results.

If political cynicism is a viral disease, actions like this are the reason that it spreads so quickly.  

Below the fold, you will find that action alert from Restore the Delta.  Since Calitics has a podcast scheduled for this afternoon with Lois Wolk and John Laird, I would like to know just how much longer they expect the public to sit down, shut up and get with the program. For my part I will continue working the Restore the Delta, the Planning and Conservation League, the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay, Green LA, Clean Water Action and all of the other folks who sent a letter to our bosses, Arnold, Darrel and Karen.  

Language For Water Package Circulates Capitol:  Delta Representatives/Community Leaders Barred From Preview

When Governor Schwarzenegger began his role in office, he was quite proud of being California’s premiere salesman – selling the California economy, geography, and lifestyle to court corporations throughout the world.  Many Californians responded positively to the Governor’s ongoing overtures made to the international business community.

Unfortunately what they did not foresee, is that today in 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger would be leading a failed economy while cutting deal after to deal to create a water package that will sell off the Delta – the Pacific Coast’s largest estuary – to the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District.  This package which would place junior water rights holders on coequal footing with upstream water rights holders, all at the expense of Delta farmers and fisheries, would transform the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District into California’s permanent water brokers, who will have the rights to purchase and resell water to Southern California’s urban communities at will through  a new conveyance system – aka the peripheral canal.

With the aid of his sidekick, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Chief of Staff  Susan Kennedy has brought in one-by-one individual water agencies and other organizations, all from outside of the Delta,  to negotiate what each individual groups wants to see in the water package.  And by bringing in corporate environmental organizations into the negotiations process, such the Nature Conservancy, NRDC, and the Environmental Defense Fund, which all stand to benefit financially either from the bond package itself or from continued funding from pro-peripheral canal foundations or corporations like Bechtel, the Governor and Senate President have given themselves green cover for policies that will turn the Delta into a stagnant saltwater marsh.

Delta leaders, both elected officials and community leaders, remain 100% left out of the process.  The only question posed to a few  has been how much money we would like to see in a water bond proposal for a project for the Delta – that would be in trade for our consent for the water package and water bond.

Our concerns about water rights protections, inflows for Delta fisheries and Delta communities, enforceable and enforced water quality standards, and a local and state partnership for Delta governance have been completely ignored.  The letter proposal for a sustainable water strategy sent out by Restore the Delta and 23 environmental organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Californian has been ignored.  Our concerns about the State taking out general obligation bonds when our State coffers are empty have been ignored.

So now, our loyal and active Restore the Delta supporters, it’s up to you!  First, we need you to sign the five petition/letters that we have created on-line to send to all of California’s legislators.  You can do so by clicking here.

Second, we need you to forward this action alert to everyone you know in California.  Third, we need you to call your state legislator’s District office and let them know of your opposition to the secret water bond and water package.  And fourth, we need you to check back on the Restore the Delta website daily for the next week to see if your presence is needed in Sacramento.

As of noon today, an Assembly Parks, and Wildlife Committee Hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Monday October, 26, 2009.  If this changes, we will send out an updated email message this weekend.  It is also our understanding that the Senate Natural Resources Committee may hold a hearing on any day next week at the will of the Chairs.  We will let you know the time and dates of the hearings as soon as we know.

There was a bit of discussion about the City of Industry / Ed Roski plan to build a new sports stadium in LA County. The stories neglect to tell you a very major point, that Ted Lieu is listed as a principle co-author of ABX381, a bill that many detests.

Now, Lieu is running for Attorney General and does not dare brag about this bill on his web site.  In fact, the news lets Senate ProTem Steinberg take the rap for setting aside California’s Environmental Quality legislation to aid a private developer and a city of less than 1000 people.

I don’t think that this state needs an Attorney General who is so willing to set aside environmental law when it becomes convenient, just for that sake of a big developer who promises jobs… something that sports complexes routinely fail to deliver.

It might have been expected from a Republican.  That Lieu is a Democrat should be embarrassing to the party. I have already seen an effort to have SoCal Greens oppose Lieu over his willingness to set aside existing law.

I wonder what is going on in CA-11 (my own district).  After surprising the world and beating Richard Pombo in 2006, and then consolidating his position in the district in 2008, Jerry McNerney now finds himself with no less than 7 opponents (according to Vorderbrueggen)  for the 2010 election.

Does a declining party really think that they can win this one back, or is it just the fact that they are still in shock over Pombo’s loss… and our gain?

I would guess that McNerney would love to see a Republican cat fight chewing up contributions while he meets quarterly fund-raising goals with regularity.

I sent the following to Jerry McNerney tonight:

Jerry,

I have supported you for a long time, writing newspaper columns calling for voting Pombo out and you in both in 2004 and 2006.  Now, I need to tell you what has to happen for you to continue getting my support.

To begin with, you know and I know that climate change changes everything.  There is nothing more important than dealing with this.

If you want to cut health care costs, you must deal with climate change before tropical diseases like malaria invade the US and valley fever become even more wide spread.  The latter only killed 200 last year.

If you want to fix the economy, you must deal with climate change as the costs of trying to mitigate its effects later will devastate our country’s economy.  The entire Obama economic plan depends on returning to an era of growth the help pay off the debts that we are incurring now.  The effects of climate change may be that such growth never occurs just at the time that we need to be building Netherlands style dikes to protect half of your district from flooding.

Neither Waxman – Markey nor Kerry – Boxer will really achieve their alleged goals.  Those who cheated on mortgage back equities will cheat on trading pollution credits.  Neither bill really takes on coal.  They still talk of the mythological clean coal.  Duke Energy has pulled out of the Clean Coal Coalition and Jim Rogers, it’s CEO, says this about carbon capture and sequestration:

> He argued that it’s unlikely that the United States will be able to develop and bring to scale carbon-capture-and-storage – often called “clean coal” technology. “I think there’s no way we can scale in this country,” he said. “It’s more likely that China will develop and bring CCS to scale. I’d like to be China for a day so we can get CCS done. They’re more likely to get it scaled and deployed than we are. We’re going to be buying their technology.” (Source: Washington Independent)

I expect to hear you telling the truth about where we are headed and to see you working for much stronger legislation than we currently see.  The alternative is to work for someone else who will promise to get this job done, no matter what party they are from.

Wes Rolley  

According to the California Public Utilities Commission, October is Solar Energy Month. Great.

In my own locale, there is a San Benito County / South Santa Clara County tour scheduled for Oct. 3… notification from SJ Mercury News in my email today.

The promotion sounds great, but just remember, the big companies and their political friends are trying to shut down distributed solar by not extending the amount of home generated electricity that the utilities are required to purchase. AB 560 was supposed to fix that. According to Sponsor Nancy Skinner (Dem.. 14th AD)…

AB 560 – Renewable Energy Net Metering

This bill seeks to address the current statutory cap on net metering for customers who currently are able to receive credit for energy produced by their solar or wind system, and offset energy usage on the electricity bills.

So, if you want to go solar, it is a good time to make this an major issue. This bill died in committee in the State Senate and I have not seen any official notice that it was carried over to the next session. The Democratic leadership could not even get this no-brainer legislation out of committee. What Green Jobs if you can’t sell your solar back to the utilities? Is this another example of Steinberg’s leadership?

While it is great fun to label the Republicans as the Yacht Party, and frankly all to easy to do with playboys like Nevada Senator John Ensign continually in the news.  However, most Republicans are not like that.  They are carpenters, small business owners, farmers. Most of them don’t even own a row boat, let alone a yacht.

I don’t think that I have ever seen any party so out of touch with it’s constituents and so dependent on the Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Savage, etc. media to keep things energized.

Speaking of Hannity, Mike Fitzgerald did a real number on him in the Stockton Record.  Score one for a real journalist… not like the other names I mentioned.  

I was please to read Mike Fitzgerald’s column in the Stockton Record today.  He rather showed Hannity for what we know him to be, a blithering idiot who will say anything that he gets paid to say. Here is a taste:

Where to begin? Hannity’s show was set in a cotton farm outside Huron. The farm is fallow for lack of water. The Grapes of Wrath, Part II: The Joads of Huron.

Only those ignorant of the oceanic amounts of water needed to farm cotton are oblivious to the irony. If water’s scarce, cotton shouldn’t even be farmed.

“Turn the water back on!” Hannity intoned over and over, sounding like Moses crying “Let my people go!”

In fact, the water has been “turned on” since June 30. Last Sunday – to cite a typical day – the state and federal pumps exported 13,626 acre-feet of water from the Delta.

The pumps sucked hard enough to make Old River, Middle River and the San Joaquin River at Stockton flow backwards.

Read it yourself.  It is much better in a San Joaquin Valley paper.  

I read Bill Hedricks post on Calvert being cited by CREW as being one of the most corrupt congressmen in Washington… again.  On that basis alone, I would wish Bill luck.  But, we should not get too cocky about this.  Remember,  Maxine Waters made the same list for the 3rd time and Laura Richardson has quickly gotten into a position be be recognized.

No party has a lock on corruption and you don’t excuse it for the good deeds done otherwise. Case in point, check the AntiCorruption Republican. Some are still trying to purge the part of the stench of Abramoff.  I would be just like their Washington correspondent probably left the courtroom to go join CREW and watch Tom DeLay on Dancin’ with the Stars.  

I remember Pete McCloskey warning us that politicians are like diapers.  They need to be changed frequently… and for the same reason.  

I have to hand it to Nancy Skinner (AD-14).  She understands what it takes to get the public to be responsible for their own energy use and cost.  Her sponsorship of AB560 would expand the amount of independently produced solar energy that the states utilities are required to buy from 2.5% to 5.0 percent.  The mechanism is called net metering. It did not even get out of committee.

Today’s SF Chronicle calls this a blow to Green Jobs, obviously thinking of the manufacturers and installers of solar panels and associated equipment.  I happen to agree.  It is also a blow to every homeowner in the state and a move that would allow the mega-corporations to keep all of the Green $$ for themselves.

I wonder what Van Jones thinks of this.  It would seem to me that he would have a definite interest in expanding the opportunities.  If the Democrats are not going to support controlling the ghg’s from electricity generation and providing the opportunity for there to actually be as many green jobs as he wants, there is another party that would welcome him to join.  Greens are interested in Green Jobs, and in fixing climate change.  We invite him over as the Democrats show that they just don’t get it… once more.  

Listening to Talk of the Nation this AM.  They started with a segment on the budget crisis.  Unavoidably, Prop 13 became part of the discussion and one call in comment (from Prescott, AZ no less) referenced Calitics as his source of information.  

Glad to see the word is spreading.