Capitol Weekly writes about the water policy elephant
in the room: the construction of the peripheral canal.
"Two powerful California water agencies, the Westlands
Water District in the Central Valley and the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California, support a legislative
water compromise in part because they believe it brings
the Peripheral Canal closer to reality.
"The agencies themselves say they would pay for the
huge project, using the money from the rate increases
paid by their customers.
"All the agencies will share the cost of conveyance," said MWD's Jeff Kightlinger, which he said could cost between
$6 billion and $12 billion. He testified before a legislative hearing
on the water proposal. Rate hikes could total 10 percent to 12 percent for urban and industrial users, and perhaps
50 percent to 100 percent for agricultural customers, he said. General agreeement has been reached among the water
agencies that a canal is needed, he added.
But environmentalists who support the legislation authored
by Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said the bill does not give a
green-light to construction of the canal, or any other capital
projects. The bill focuses on governance of the delta,
environmental safeguards, water supply reliability
and other issues. Funding for those issues, perhaps in the $9 billion
range, will be addressed separately, he said.
"The bill does not authorize a canal," Ann Notthoff of the Natural Resources Defense Council
testified Monday at a legislative hearing.
E.J Schultz reports Republicans still don't like it.
"Two influential
water districts and several environmental groups said
Monday they
support key elements of water legislation under negotiation
in the
Capitol. But the compromise is not good enough for Republican leaders,
who said they still have "grave concerns" that the proposals would
"create new layers of bureaucracy."
"The
pact between Westlands Water District, Metropolitan
Water District of
Southern California and key environmental groups comes
after weeks of
closed-door negotiations over new policies to mandate conservation,
track groundwater levels and create agencies to oversee
the troubled
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
"
GOP leaders said they still have issues with the conservation
and
groundwater rules. "After weeks and weeks and weeks of discussion, to
find that our concerns evidently were not taken seriously
is
disappointing," said Assembly Republican leader
Sam Blakeslee.
Republicans have "grave concerns whether or not this actually solves
the water problem," he said.
Apparently if you're a Democrat running for attorney general, you need
your own plan to tax oil companies. Steve Harmon writes, "
As oil
companies continue to reap record profits amid strained
state revenues,
a pair of Democratic lawmakers are hoping to tap into
their deep
pockets by installing an oil severance tax that could
relieve growing
pressures to cut more state services.
"Assemblyman Pedro Nava,
D-Long Beach, introduced a bill Monday called the Fair
Share Act, that
would impose a 10 percent oil severance fee on extractions from
California wells to bring in $1.5 billion to the state's coffers.
"A
similar bill that has already cleared one committee,
by Assemblyman
Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, would impose a 9.9 percent fee, but would
earmark the revenues to higher education funding.
"The attempt to
sock it to oil companies is nothing new: lawmakers tried a couple times
earlier this year — even with the blessing of Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger at one point. But Republican lawmakers,
who would need
to provide three votes in each legislative chamber
to reach the
two-thirds vote threshold for raising taxes, have refused
to consider
it."
Hey, originality doesn't get you votes...
Carolyn Jones says the Bay Area is going to tax itself out of its fiscal
problems.
"The recession moves to the ballot box Nov. 3,
as more than two dozen Bay Area cities and school districts
ask voters
to rescue them from the budgetary abyss.
"We're desperate," said San Mateo City Councilwoman Jan Epstein. "We
never really recovered from the dot-com bust. And we've already cut so
much, we don't have many choices at this point."
"From Santa Clara to Vallejo, the cities and school
districts are
asking voters to open their wallets for parcel taxes, sales taxes,
hotel taxes, utility taxes, business license taxes
and at least one
cardroom tax.
"Faced with plunging tax revenues, periodic budget raids
from the
state and escalating pension and health costs, most
local cities have
watched their reserve funds dwindle and budget gaps
explode."
It will be intersting to see if Bay Area voters are
still in the mood to tax themselves to protect social
services in this economy...
The race between John Garamendi and David Harmer gets a little ink in Politico.
"While the National Republican Congressional Committee
and the
Republican National Committee have been spending far
more time and
money in the GOP-held New York district where Republican Dede
Scozzafava faces Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative
Party nominee
Doug Hoffman, Harmer’s campaign contends that the West Coast race could
prove to be a sleeper.
“I understand they’re tied up in New York, but the fact is, we think
we’ve pulled close,” Tim Clark, Harmer’s lead strategist, told
POLITICO. “We are not yet a target [race]. We would like to be a
target, but we do anticipate some help” with getting out the vote."
And from our Legal Beagle Files, now know the punishment for throwing feces in court , thanks to a San Diego man.
"A man who sneaked a bag of his feces into a San Diego courtroom
during his home-invasion robbery trial, smeared it on his lawyer and
threw it at jurors has been sentenced to 31 years in prison.
"Superior Court Judge Frank Brown
on Monday sentenced Weusi McGowan for robbery, burglary and two assault
charges stemming from the feces-flinging incident during his January
trial."
