Fleck check on Feinstein minnow “precedent”
Posted on | February 17, 2010 | No Comments
THIS just in from John Fleck, science writer of the Albuquerque Journal: “California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is moving to intervene via Congress in a fight very much like the one that raged here in New Mexico back in the summer of 2003 over the endangered Rio Grande Silvery Minnow. And she’s citing our fish-v-farmers legal and political fight as precedent for the action she is proposing. But is she misrepresenting the history?”
Click here to keep reading.
The governor will think about it
Posted on | February 17, 2010 | 1 Comment
Fairly or unfairly, ever since a boozy incident in 2006 in which then Nevada gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons either groped a woman, or caught her during a slipping accident in a Las Vegas garage, the Southern Nevadan press has denied itself no opportunity to ridicule the man who the following year became the state’s executive.
The press attacks were arguably worse on the admittedly rare occasions when he made sense, and never so fierce as when Governor Gibbons dared question the wisdom of the swelling city’s proposed 300-mile pipeline into the Great Basin. (The second line of one such excoriation in the Las Vegas Sun in February 2008, headlined “Governor all wet,” read: “Fortunately, the governor alone cannot stop the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plan to pump ground water from White Pine and Lincoln counties.”)
But, last weekend, facing a potentially devastating ruling from the Supreme Court of Nevada that appears to invalidate all water awards for the project, his tormentors from the Las Vegas press came a-begging Gibbons to instruct the state legislature to consider an amendment that could, in effect, refill the city’s pipe. (Click here for the Sun with its cup out, and here for the Review-Journal).
Lo and behold, when yesterday the governor issued his order for a special session of legislature to address the state’s economic woes, the water cure for Las Vegas was not among the instructions.
There remains, however, room for Governor Gibbons to do the wrong thing in a catch-all phrase at the bottom: “The Legislature may also consider any other legislative business as I may call to the attention of the Legislature while in session.”
For background on the Las Vegas pipeline, click here and on the Southern Nevada Water Authority attempt to go through the Nevada governor to use the legislature to render the state’s supreme court’s decision moot, here.
Suggestion for the senator
Posted on | February 17, 2010 | No Comments
The Los Angeles Times is the latest newspaper with advice for the senior senator from California. This comes from today’s editorial on Dianne Feinstein’s announcement that she intends to add a rider to a jobs bill to quadruple water deliveries to corporate farmers on the west side of the Central Valley though it would almost certainly be a death blow to the state’s crippled salmon fishery: “Feinstein says she’s still working on the language of her rider and is open to alternative suggestions. Here’s ours: Stop interfering with the state’s delicate water talks and withdraw this destructive amendment.” To keep reading, click here.
For background on the senator’s move, click here and for an informed look at the supposed “precedent” for the proposed rider, here.
“Silvery minnow” no precedent for Delta
Posted on | February 16, 2010 | 2 Comments
This follow up to “Soft on Fish” arrived today from a member of the water bar familiar with the 2003 Silvery Minnow legislation cited by Senator Feinstein as precedent for the rider that she plans to attach to a jobs bill to increase water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farm interests on the West Side of the Central Valley.
“Senator Feinstein’s press release stated, “There is precedent for the solution I am pursuing: in 2003, the Senate unanimously approved legislation that provided water supply certainty with regard to restrictions imposed to protect the Silvery Minnow in New Mexico. In that legislation, Congress mandated that a Biological Opinion be implemented with a change.”
It is not true that the silvery minnow rider is similar to, or provides precedent for, Senator Feinstein’s Bay-Delta proposal.
Tags: Bay-Delta > chance of rain > Dianne Feinstein > Silvery Minnow
Soft on fish
Posted on | February 15, 2010 | 3 Comments
On this the advent of the Year of the Tiger, it is striking in “The week that was” how much a certain senator from California sounds like Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
But last week it was the lady from California who showed the iron fist when Dianne Feinstein threatened to add a rider to a jobs bill in order to open Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta pumps full throttle to slake powerful corporate farmers on the West Side of the Central Valley.
Click here to keep reading
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