Trump opposes massive California water project
ELLEN KNICKMEYER
SAN FRANCISCO — The Trump administration said Wednesday that it will not support a massive water project proposed by California, the latest and most serious blow for Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to re-engineer the state’s water system by building two giant water tunnels.
“The Trump administration did not fund the project and chose to not move forward with it,” Russell Newell, spokesman for the U.S. Interior Department, said in an email.
Asked if that meant the Trump administration did not support California’s tunnels project, Newell said yes.
Brown wants California water districts to pay $16 billion to build two, 35-mile-long tunnels to divert part of the state’s largest river, the Sacramento, to supply water to the San Francisco Bay Area and central and Southern California.
The Obama administration backed the project, but the tunnels plan ran into its biggest obstacles yet last month, when two key water districts opted not to pay for it.
As a candidate, Donald Trump had called for water projects to bring more water to farmers in California, the country’s leading agricultural state.
The Trump administration has not previously taken a stand on the tunnels project pushed by California’s Democratic governor, though federal wildlife agencies gave their green light in June by finding that the plan would not mean extinction for endangered and threatened native species of salmon and other fish.
While the tunnels plan is a state initiative, it intersects with existing state and federal water projects in California, and would require approval from the Interior Department to go ahead.
Newell made his comments in response to a request by California Democratic members of Congress on Tuesday for a new federal probe of previous Interior Department spending on the tunnels project under the Obama administration.
Last month, an audit found that Interior officials under the Obama administration improperly spent $84 million in federal taxpayer money to help California pay for planningforthetunnels.OnTuesday, five California Democrats, including top opponents of the tunnels, asked the U.S. General Accountability Office to determine whether those payments were illegal.
“The $84 million spent in taxpayers’ money without disclosure to Congress and kept hidden from the public were decisions driven and executed by the Obama Administration and that team,” Newell said.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “believes that using tax dollars wisely and ethically is a big responsibility and is at the heart of good government.”
BARCELONA, Spain — Spanish authorities are leaving separatists in Catalonia with “no other option” but to push ahead with declaring independence for the wealthy northeastern region, its vice-president said Wednesday.
Spain has announced plans to fire Catalonia’s government and directly manage its affairs after it held an independence vote that was declared illegal by the country’s constitutional court. Residents of Catalonia, including many who don’t back independence, have been aghast at what they feel is Spain’s heavy-handed response.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Vice-President Oriol Junqueras said his party —one of two in the separatist coalition now governing Catalonia — rejected calling an early regional election as a way out of the political deadlock because it believes that Catalans already have chosen independence.
Spain’s constitutional Court has ruled against the Oct. 1 referendum Catalonia’s government held and central authorities in Madrid say the vote’s results are invalid. The vast majority of those who voted backed independence but the vote had numerous problems, including police violence to stop it.
Junqueras said his party would “work toward building a republic, because we understand that there is a democratic mandate to establish such a republic.”
He said he was speaking only on behalf of his Republican Left party and not for the regional government. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is to address regional lawmakers in parliament Thursday evening.
Junqueras spoke with the AP amid frantic jockeying among Catalonia’s political elite on how to respond to plans by Spanish authorities to fire them and take over managing the region until a new election is held.
“The Spanish government is giving us no other option than to defend the civil rights and citizens’ rights through the best tools that our institutions have,” Junqueras said.
Puigdemont has not signalled what he intends to do, but called a late Wednesday meeting of his cabinet. Local media speculated he could call an early regional election to avoid the unprecedented takeover.
But Junqueras ruled an election out, saying it would be wrong and illogical “to renounce the democratic mandate that we have from citizens.”
In Madrid, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said his government’s plans to take control of Catalonia’s key affairs and halt the region’s push for independence were “exceptional” measures that he hoped would not be needed for long.
The conservative prime minister told Parliament that invoking constitutional authority over Catalonia was the “only possible” way to bring the region back in line with Spanish law, which he said the separatist Catalan government has violated repeatedly.
Rajoy said he hopes the measures will be brief but they will only be lifted once order is restored in Catalonia.
“The government’s response is the only one possible, given the stance of the Catalan institutions,” Rajoy said. “I am fulfilling my duty and I am doing it in the face of a rejection of our laws, of our Constitution and of the millions of Catalan citizens who can see that their (regional) government has flouted the law.”