I absolutely love this article. I cannot begin to tell you how it delights me that Tom McClintock is going to spend his time as a member of the majority of the House of Representatives reviving Auburn Dam. I think he should do that. I think he should spend most of his time on it. A six to ten billion dollar dam on an earthquake fault over a major city based on lapsed water rights? You get right on that, Representative McClintock. But that’s not what surprised me. The quote that surprised me was this:
The dam discussion would tie in with McClintock’s political stance on natural resources issues.
“It can be summed up in one word – abundance,” McClintock said.
Until the 1970s, the federal goal was to assure the abundance of water and power from its natural resources, he said. But that was replaced with a rationing of shortages caused by an abandonment of the abundance perspective, he said.
HOLY SHIT! Rep. McClintock has read The Secret! He believes it! He thinks that your mind sends out magic waves if you have the right beliefs, in this case, calling down the rain to fill new dams! I LOVE this. My own theory is that new concrete is the breeding habitat for the unicorns that spill fresh water from their pearly horns, but Rep. McClintock is far more New Age-y and modern. He is skipping straight ahead to talk of belief systems using quantum mechanics to shape the world and fill rivers!
A more charitable understanding of his statement is more literal. He complains that in the Seventies, the government abandoned the perspective that its role is to provide abundance of water and power. It is interesting to read a Republican saying that he believes the role of the federal government is to provide ever-increasing abundance to its people, regardless of the constraints of the physical world. He likely thinks that in the Seventies, people noticed that ever increasing abundance of water for human use forced a trade-off for environmental uses and that’s where it all went downhill. But I would note that by the Seventies, we had run out of good dam sites, such that we are forced to consider dams on earthquake faults perched above major cities as the next best option.
Either way, his statement shows a staggering disconnect from the physical world. But that’s fine. Working on Auburn Dam is a pointless waste of his time, but I’m inclined to think that anything else he’d do would cause more damage. I hope he schedules lots of meetings and hearings about it. I hope he gets all the California Republican Representatives good and fired up about Auburn Dam. Poor Steve Evans. He’ll never be done.
On the public record 
The best part of the Journal article is where the Dam is referred to as “a long delayed project”. Ummm…I guess that’s one way to look at it. How about “a project that has died a thousand deaths, collapsing repeatedly under the weight of its own stupidity”?
It’s funny how “Republicans” such as McClintock only consider profit in the context of enormous multinational corporations, or in this case the tired old investor-based public utility model. For example, there’s no consideration whatsoever of all the revenue that would be wiped out if one of the most popular white water runs in California is buried under 700 feet of water. I guess all those small business people who own successful rafting companies, all the local eateries and shops in Placer county, that kind of profit doesn’t matter to people like McClintock. What happened to being “a nation of small businesspeople and farmers”, Tom? Oh wait, that was the other Tom.
“Poor Steve Evans. He’ll never be done.”
Hey, don’t forget poor Ron Stork. He invested many years putting the final nail in the Auburn coffin and the thought that he’s now going to have to spend any amount of time monitoring the activities of Tom (Loony Tunes) McClintock is discouraging.
They’ve both done yeoman’s work. All respect to them.