SACRAMENTO –
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry in the 1973 classic Magnum Force, a governor must know his limits.
Even a governor with little political opposition and a very friendly, usually cooperative legislature has limits to power.
This time Governor Gavin Newsom may have found his limits. Key lawmakers are fighting back against his late-introduced law to expedite construction of a highly controversial water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
As is his pattern, Newsom attempts to squeeze through legislation at the last minute, denying lawmakers and the public adequate time to evaluate and discuss the proposal. This really gets on the nerves of lawmakers, whether they are leaders or backbenchers.
“It feels disrespectful to him [legislative] process,” State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) said at a Senate committee hearing on the governor’s proposal this month.
“To try to do something like this at the last minute on such a controversial issue is so inappropriate,” said Rep. Carlos Villapudua (D-Stockton).
Newsom did so last year and later boasted about his success in blocking lawmakers. Towards the end of his two-year term, the governor sent the legislature an ambitious package of climate action proposals, and most of them passed.
A governor can “block” lawmakers by holding their bills hostage. He could refuse to sign a bill written by a lawmaker who votes against his proposal. By waiting long enough for a governor to submit his bills to the legislature, he also greatly reduces the time opponents have to organize opposition.
That year, Newsom waited until May 19 to propose a draft infrastructure bill, which he was scheduled to pass by lawmakers within five weeks as part of the annual state budget. What he proposes has nothing to do with the budget. But he can hold lawmakers’ favorite budget items hostage to their votes for his proposal
In addition, the governor’s legislation can be enshrined in budget “trailer” legislation that does not require scrutiny by policy committees.
Newsom proposed a sweeping package of 11 bills that would facilitate the construction of clean energy, transportation and water projects, including the Delta Tunnel.
This would be achieved essentially by reducing environmental protection. Lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 would have to be completed within 270 days unless a judge determines it is impracticable. Such lawsuits can drag on for years.
As for the tunnel, the vote required for approval by a key Delta oversight committee would be reduced. Protection for endangered wintering cranes would be relaxed. And the role of local interests in the design of the tunnel would be weakened, they fear.
Governors have tried for six decades to build this project in some form, but have been repulsed by grassroots activists or state voters.
The delta is California’s most important water hub, serving 27 million people and irrigating 3 million hectares.
“It’s the backbone of our state’s water system,” says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state agency for natural resources. “We have borrowed time in the Delta. It is highly vulnerable to saltwater intrusion and is at risk of sea rise as a result of climate change. And there is a risk of earthquakes.
“We cannot remain in limbo year after year because of litigation. Let’s figure out how to streamline the litigation and give the tunnel a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
And if it doesn’t work, he says, the state can “go back to the drawing board and take a different approach.”
Project opponents – particularly residents of the delta, including farmers – claim that future saltwater intrusion is one reason the tunnel should not be built. It would siphon water from the fresher northern delta before it could flow through the saline southern end, as it does now, pushing back salt water intruding from San Francisco Bay.
The saltier water would be disastrous for Stockton, smaller Delta communities and agriculture, opponents say.
As for seismic hazard, no earthquake has ever damaged a delta dam and there are no major faults under the estuary. Anyway, couldn’t a major tremor damage an underground tunnel?
The fishing industry and boaters fear that reducing freshwater flow through the delta will decimate salmon stocks and exacerbate toxic algae that clog waterways in summer.
“The whole system collapsed,” says Barry Nelson, advisor to the Golden State Salmon Assn. That’s partly because of the huge fishing pumps in the Southern Delta and government regulations that often deprive baby salmon of strong enough water flow when attempting to migrate to the sea.
“The tunnel would make that possible [state] to dramatically increase pumping capacity from the Sacramento River system and further reduce the salmon population,” says Nelson.
That would depend on how the tunnel is regulated. But the opponents of the tunnel do not trust the state regulatory authorities.
Villapudua authored a letter to Newsom and lawmakers, signed by 10 lawmakers from both parties, asking for the tunnel project to be removed from the governor’s package.
“It wasn’t very wise to include the delta,” says Senator John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), a former natural resources secretary who helped persuade the then-governor to do so. Jerry Brown’s failed twin tunnel project.
“A $16 billion project like [the tunnel] is likely to have a significant impact on a large, ecologically sensitive and important area. Something of this magnitude should not be rushed through an environmental assessment process.”
Oh yeah. The Cost: Virtually everyone knows that the price for this 45-mile, 39-foot-wide tunnel would be much higher than advertised. And so far there isn’t even any funding for it. Water users would pay.
Newsom should listen to Dirty Harry.
