Sacramento Bee Pumping Proposal Divides State Again Over Water Delivery
In summary
Fed proposal aims to increase h2o deliveries to Central Valley. State debuts anti-vaping ads. Lawsuit targets U.South. Postal service over knock-off cigarettes.
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Feds offer a h2o ready
In a proposal that cuts to the core of California's economy and surround, the Trump administration on Tuesday proposed meaning changes to the state h2o system's operation intended to boost water deliveries from the Delta to farms and cities.
Operators of the federal Central Valley Project would gain flexibility to plough on massive pumps near Tracy when water flows are highest, and provide ecology protections by restricting pumping when fish are nigh.
Career officials from the U.S. Agency of Reclamation, U.S. Fish & Wild animals Association and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the program.
Hostage though they were, Trump's record and rhetoric found an obstacle.
In a 2022 entrada stop in Fresno, Trump promised more water for farms, and derided environmentalists for "trying to protect a certain kind of 3-inch fish." In one case plentiful, Delta smelt are all but extinct, reflecting a general ecology decline in the Delta.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has butted heads with Trump over the surroundings, was noncommittal, telling reporters Tuesday:
- "We will have a statement later we review the many hundreds and hundreds of pages. … We'll make a determination of what'southward the best arroyo, how to reply. Is it litigation? What the other strategies may be."
The announcement will complicate Newsom'southward efforts to forge voluntary agreements among water users, line-fishing interests and environmentalists.
Newsom has sought to accommodate San Joaquin Valley agriculture and urban water users, while maintaining his environmentalist cred. He proposes to scale back Jerry Brown's plan for twin tunnels to transport Sacramento River water thirty miles south to the Tracy pumps. Newsom says a unmarried tunnel would suffice.
What they're maxim
The L.A. Times' Bettina Boxall : "The rollback … rewards Key Valley agribusiness interests that are some of the president'due south strongest California supporters."
- Jeffrey Kightlinger of the Metropolitan H2o District, in The Times: "While this creates some dubiety nigh our hereafter supplies, information technology is without question a meliorate approach."
The Sacramento Bee'southward Dale Kasler : Trump has been determined most his desire to help the Valley, a Republican stronghold that is chronically scrambling for water.
- Mike Wade of the California Farm H2o Coalition, in The Bee: "This is the dawn of a new science-based approach to water and ecosystem management."
The New York Times : The proposal "might intensify ethics questions about Interior Secretarial assistant David Bernhardt, who was the lobbyist for those farmers until but months before he joined the Trump administration."
Business firm Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and California's other six congressional Republicans: The h2o plan would "help ensure our constituents receive the water they are entitled to or contract and pay for."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "We are examining the new biological opinions to ensure they incorporate the adaptive direction and existent-time monitoring needed to properly manage the Central Valley Project for the benefit of all Californians. … We look forward to the State of California'southward thoughtful analysis of the biological opinions."
- Kim Delfino, of Defenders of Wildlife: "These new opinions volition exist devastating for the Bay-Delta, its tributaries and the fish that rely upon the Delta for their survival."
Strong anti-vaping ads set to air
California Department of Public Wellness officials are preparing to launch at least five anti-vaping ads aimed at dissuading young people from using any kind of vaping device past warning them of life-threatening lung affliction.
The ads also seek to inform parents of warning signs, and drive people to a website, vapeoutbreak.org.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last month directed $20 one thousand thousand for the entrada.
Officials have not formally announced the entrada but accept circulated the spots among anti-vaping advocates, including UC San Francisco Medical School professor Stanton Glantz, a longtime tobacco researcher. Glantz called the entrada "stunning."
The latest count of the vaping-related disease: 136 Californians hospitalized. The exact cause remains unknown.
Suit over quondam-fashioned cigarettes
Smokers looking to save on the cost of cigarettes turn to mail-gild outlets. California contends the U.Southward. Postal Service is enabling the practice.
In his latest suit confronting the federal regime, Attorney Full general Xavier Becerra has joined with New York City alleging that the postal service is declining to stop delivery of knock-off tax-costless cigarettes, costing the state millions in lost tobacco tax acquirement.
Apocryphal smokes often arrive at JFK Aerodrome in New York from Vietnam, Mainland china and Israel, with lesser amounts from Japan, Korea, Kyrgyz republic and Ukraine.
The conform alleges xl,850 cartons of cigarettes spring for California were discovered during one audit, representing a taxation loss of $1.17 1000000, at the electric current taxation of $2.87 per pack.
The suit seeks "damages equal to the amount of unpaid taxes on tobacco products," and demands that the postal office comply with laws requiring that it intercept cigarettes sent through the mail.
Ane manner to cutting housing costs
Entrepreneurs say they've got a partial fix for the housing shortage: pre-fab apartments, CalMatters housing reporter Matt Levin reports.
California has 5 of the summit x priciest rental markets in the land. A contractor shortage and the cost of textile make structure more than expensive.
Inside a onetime World War Ii submarine facility in Vallejo, Mill OS is creating a 156-unit of measurement modular edifice for a development about Oakland. The visitor says it can whip up three- to five-story apartment buildings 40% faster and twenty% cheaper than traditional structure.
- Factory OS co-founder Larry Pace: "It literally becomes a plug-and-play. We have go very proficient at what nosotros practise, and it volition revolutionize the construction industry from what we've seen in the past. Information technology already has."
America's been hither before: Factory-built housing has a checky history, from the Sears catalog to the Nixon administration's Operation Breakthrough, one of which still houses tenants in Sacramento.
Levin's story is the latest installment of CalMatters' California Dream collaboration.
Take a number: 23,000
Arcadia businessman Imaad Zuberi was the sort of campaign donor who liked winners, giving to Hillary Clinton when she looked like a sure bet, then switching sides and giving $900,000 to Donald Trump's inaugural committee.
Zuber was indicted Tuesday and agreed to plead guilty to charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, tax evasion, and making illegal campaign contributions.
- The L.A. Times' Joel Rubin : "Zuberi collected millions of dollars for consulting fees, old investments and campaign contributions, but simply pocketed much of the money, prosecutors said."
Zuberi's name has surfaced in connection with a separate federal investigation into Trump'due south countdown committee.
Zuberi regularly gave to state politicians, too, though he wasn't a very good handicapper. He and his married woman gave $46,000 to Democrat Asif Mahmood for his failed run for insurance commissioner last twelvemonth, and $11,000 to Dave Jones for his unsuccessful candidacy for attorney full general.
One winner: By my count, Zuberi and his wife donated $23,000 to Secretary of Country Alex Padilla, a Democrat, in 2014.
- Padilla spokesman David Beltran said in an email last dark: "He's going to donate an equal amount to a non-profit (yet to be adamant)."
Commentary at CalMatters
Daniel Barad, Sierra Club: Instead of continuing to create policies that use our money to pay the logging industry to incinerate its trash, the state must ban pile burning and need that logging companies help develop a sustainable, make clean biomass utilization program.
Dan Walters, CalMatters: Gov. Gavin Newsom seems to have a problem dealing with the politics of transportation.
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Delight electronic mail or phone call me with tips, suggestions and insights, dmorain@calmatters.org, 916.201.6281. Thank you for reading, delight tell a friend and sign up here.
Come across you lot tomorrow.
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Source: https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2019/10/feds-water-proposal-faces-an-obstacle-named-trump-state-launches-anti-vaping-ads/
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