House-passed bill would eviscerate California laws
Public attention has focused on the Trump administration’s many proposals that would harm our environment and endanger public health. But it would be a mistake for Californians and the media to focus exclusively on White House efforts to roll back existing environmental protections. That’s because, largely under the radar, the Republican-controlled Congress is pursuing its own antienvironment agenda.
One of the most dangerous and sweeping such congressional proposals is HR23, the deceptively named “Gaining Responsibility on Water Act.” That bill, which has already passed the House, would reverse the federal government’s century-old deference to state water law, exempt water projects in California from long-standing state laws protecting the environment, and invalidate iconic federal environmental laws applying to those projects.
This attack on California water rights is the handiwork of California Republicans led by Rep. David Valadao of Tulare and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. Make no mistake: They drafted this bill in close collaboration with Central Valley agribusiness interests. If successful, HR23 would provide additional water to California farmers and ranchers at the expense of California’s environment.
HR23, if enacted, would set a horrible precedent. It would eliminate basic protections for California’s environment — and only California’s environment — contained in long-standing federal laws including the Endangered Species Act. The consequences of these so-called “reforms” would be devastating for California’s water, land and wildlife resources.
The deep flaws and agribusiness handouts littered throughout this 137page bill are far too numerous to recount. But to understand the worst features of HR23 requires a bit of Western political history.
More than a century ago, Congress passed — and Republican President Theodore Roosevelt signed — the Reclamation Act of 1902. This law made possible construction of an extensive system of federal water projects that transformed the American West. A key feature of the act — one replicated in numerous later federal laws — requires federal water projects such as California’s Central Valley Project to operate in full compliance with state water law.
But HR23 would reverse that longstanding principle of deference to state water law — at least when it comes to California and its water rights system. The bill would bar California regulators, including the State Water Resources Control Board and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, from imposing any environmental conditions on the Central Valley Project or the State Water Project that could impinge upon privately held water rights. HR23 would expressly make California’s public trust doctrine — a cornerstone principle of state environmental law that protects our natural resources for use by us all and that the California Supreme Court expressly declared applicable to state water rights in its 1983 “Mono Lake” decision — inapplicable to private California water rights altogether.
As if these provisions were not bad enough, HR23 also requires federal and state operators of the Central Valley and State Water projects to manage those water projects “without regard to the [federal] Endangered Species Act.” This represents a sweeping and unprecedented exemption of California’s biggest water projects from powerful environmental protections. HR23 would effectively repeal key provisions of the Central Valley Improvement Act, the landmark 1992 federal legislation designed to partially restore San Joaquin River flows that federal water operations have devastated.
In short, HR23 represents a clear and present danger to California’s environment while providing a huge “water windfall” to California agribusiness.
HR23 passed the House last month on a largely party-line vote, 230-190. (Notably, most members of California’s congressional delegation voted against this California-specific bill.) Now it moves to the Senate, where its passage is less certain. California’s senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, have both announced their strong opposition to the bill, as has Gov. Jerry Brown.
The Senate represents an important last stand for opponents of HR23 because there’s little doubt that if the Senate passes the bill President Trump will sign it into law.
As a candidate, Trump notoriously declared in a 2016 San Joaquin Valley campaign appearance that California’s unprecedented five-year drought was a falsehood. Trump simultaneously pledged that, if elected, he would do all he could to provide additional water to state agricultural interests — notwithstanding the adverse environmental consequences of such a reallocation of finite California water supplies.
Let’s hope that the Senate sees HR23 for what it is: a nullification of states’ rights principles that Republicans profess to hold dear, an unwarranted windfall for state agribusiness, and a looming disaster for California’s unequaled environmental resources.