On the public record

I’ll take questions, if anyone has them. Although who knows if the thoughts they prompt will address the question. SWP and CVP territory only, please. I don’t know any other systems well enough to opine.

Stories saying that internalizing negative environmental externalities imposes direct costs on the users do not get my sympathy.

It is hard to know whether Representative Devin Nunes writes his blog himself.  The posts are all in the first person singular, and one should assume that someone claiming to write a blog is the real author.  On the other hand, don’t elected people have staff for stuff like this?  And he writes pretty good for an ag business major with a masters in agriculture.  I sat in a lot of classes with ag majors and I didn’t come away thinking of them as writers.  I wonder because I found his recent post deeply strange, and wanted to talk about what  it reveals of the author.

First, the title:
Unnatural Greenies: The Two Faces of Radical Environmentalism

“Radical environmentalism” is an attempt at a new catchphrase, right?  I’ve seen it around more in the past six months.  I’m not sure what it is supposed to convey.  Some combination of the Earth Liberation Front and Center for Biological Diversity, only in body paint?  Is it in implied contrast to mainstream environmentalism, which the speaker can mostly accept, so long as it sticks to anti-litter campaigns and de-oiling birds?  Supposed to imply that the speaker is reasonable and could treat with reasonable environmentalists, but not these radical ones?  The opener, “Unnatural greenies”, only reinforces that, although I suspect it is more supposed to be clever.  Like, greenies are supposed to be “natural”, but these aren’t, get it?  Heh heh.

The first paragraph shows an apocalyptic view of the conflict.  If the radical environmentalists get their way, the SJV will be transformed into desert.  The whole thing.  Nothing but dunes, from Sierra to Coast Range.  Well, far as I know, I’m making the most radical predictions on the water blogs, and my prediction is that we’ll lose 3 million acres of ag in the next several decades, out of 10 million acres of ag in the state (from reduced runoff from climate change).  Further, I think ag could stabilize with a robust east side industry, which is Nunes’ own district.  (Besides, if I got my own radical way, (parts of) the SJV would return to grasslands and seasonal marsh, not desert.)  But, the author of that blog post thinks that he is battling against desertification of the whole San Joaquin Valley.

Then comes my favorite paragraph:

To this end, environmental radicals, operating in the name of Gaia, Mother Earth, the wiccan religion and a host of other cult-like organizations, have litigated, legislated and extorted away the water needed for San Joaquin Valley communities.

This is who Rep. Nunes thinks makes up the environmental community?  What? I have to make a list.

• First, I’m pretty unhappy with the imputation of false gods.  Now, I don’t think it is an insult to say that someone worships something besides an Abrahamic god, but my understanding is that from within narrow-minded sections of Abrahamic faiths, accusing people of serving other gods is a serious business. Thou shalt worship no other, and all that.  The author is throwing around serious charges, and I don’t know if it is worse if he means it or is spewing the garble in his head.
• The gods listed are Gaia, Mother Earth and hilariously, wicca.  This list, all female, sounds to me like a very, very short step away from calling environmentalists “uppity women.”  It also makes me wonder what powerful woman could be haunting the author.
• Doesn’t this sound like small-minded rural folks talking about the scary (unnatural) people in the big cities?  Does the author look on LA and SF and see cult-captured freaks?  Is that why he doesn’t see urban environmentalists as reasoning opposition?  They’re crazy even aside from wanting to turn the Valley into deserts!
• The only pagan anything I’ve heard about in ages is the Winnemem Wintu prayer at the Salmonid conference.  Don’t know if that’s what set off Rep. Nunes, but if it wasn’t that prayer, that means he thinks of enviros as deeply Other all the time.  Suspicious, chick, urban Others.  Radical.  Unnatural.

The third paragraph is interesting; it confirms my earlier take on Westlands’ maneuvering.

Yet despite their ability to command the agenda of our government through powerful alliances in Congress, none of the endangered fish have shown signs of recovery.

From within the House of Representatives, Rep. Nunes (or his staffer and blog writer) believes enviros command the agenda of our government and are powerfully allied in Congress.  This is a Congressperson writing this; he must feel stymied. No wonder Westlands is doing inexplicable thrashing about.  D.C. is not going to overturn the Endangered Species Act for a couple hundred thousand acres of farmland in California.

The rest of Rep. Nune’s post spins off into ornate and oddly emotional gotcha arguments, easily refuted by editorials like this one.  But I’m left with one last question.  To whom is Rep. Nunes addressing this post?  Who is the audience for such a peculiar view of “radical environmentalists”?  Are there still peasants out there, willing to hear accusations that the enemy is, literally, witches?  This can’t be a persuasion piece, because it isn’t reaching out to the opposition.  If it is trying to reach neutral masses, the first two paragraphs won’t be like the enviros they know, and the end of it sounds like walking in on an old fight, where the arguments have gotten too complicated to follow.  So it has to be a piece for his allies, to confirm biases and give talking points.  But he is misleading his own allies.  If this is who Rep. Nunes thinks is after San Joaquin Valley water, he has missed about 95% of the complexity of the conflict.  He got the other 5% wrong.

Was reading through this story on the oversight hearings for the new Delta Stewardship Council.  Sounds like it was fairly exciting, as committee hearings go.  Reading it, I am prepared to agree on some things up front:

1.  I am perfectly happy to believe that Gov. Schwarzenegger and Sec. Snow are trying to stack this council, push through documents and hire consultants in service of building a Peripheral Canal. 

2.  I have no love for former CALFED, which I think went off track way back in the beginning when it believed its own talk about win-win solutions.  Then it got weird for interpersonal reasons, which were an additional burden and hastened the end.  (This is from rumor and distant observation, mind you.  I wasn’t close and can’t absolutely vouch for that.)

3.  I agree that presenting an incoming council with a whole bunch of nearly completed work is an extremely powerful way to set their agenda and narrow the field of potential outcomes.  I do wonder at the issue of near-simultaneous deadlines, but can’t be bothered to sort through whether they’re really a problem.  If the Legislature is bugged by the conflict, they can give clear direction.  Mostly, though, I hope that when the full Delta Stewardship Council is seated and faced with pre-made decisions (as looks inevitable), they will keep the doctrine of sunk costs in mind.

So if you’re looking for proof of conspiracy that there’s an AGENDA, I’ll grant you all of those.  But I do want to object to this one:

Joe Grindstaff is the Acting Executive Officer for the Delta Stewardship Council. He’s also the CALFED Director. Several legislators on the committee grilled Grindstaff on why CALFED was leading the project when the water project bills called for an entirely new department to replace CALFED. Using CALFED employees to staff the Delta Stewardship Council seemed to defeat the purpose and intent of the whole project, they said.

Grindstaff insisted that the Delta Stewardship Council (which as yet lacks a single member, if you recall) was “in fact, in charge of what happens.” Grindstaff also said he only transferred 27 CALFED staffers to the Delta council, which has 58 positions.

Look, y’all. The man has about a year to create a workplace of 60 people. Do you know how small the qualified, local, professional community is? There are probably, say, a couple hundred people like that in town, and a bunch of them are already working in interesting jobs for one agency or another. They may not feel like doing Delta stuff this decade, since they’ve gotten intrigued by salts or meadow restoration or something. In fact, the ones who really love the Delta and haven’t run screaming from the politics (I mean, I won’t go near it, for exactly that reason. I spectate and snipe from the sidelines.), are already working on it. Like, from the corpse of CALFED.

Second, do you have any idea how hard it is to hire people into the state? They have to pass a test to get on a list, and that test is offered years apart and you can’t hire anyone who isn’t on that list. If there is no list for the positions that the Delta Stewardship Council needs, you have zero external hiring pool. You would have to write the test, convince the Department of Personnel Administration to administer it, advertise it and grade it, and then you could start to hire. That would take a year, at the very fastest. Then you have to convince highly qualified people that they want to come work for a nascent agency, with no funding the following year, in an extremely contentious political environment where half of everyone will always hate you for something. Sometimes the half that loves you and the half that hates you switch sides.

Instead, this manager dude is going to look at his staff of thirty qualified people, who already have extensive expertise, and don’t need to be hired from outside. Of course he is going to move them over.

I want to address the other point, that this is a conspiracy to advance a Peripheral Canal. See, here’s the thing. Yes. That is the Schwarzenegger administration’s policy choice. That is what he directs the agencies to do, and what he’s going to try to rig any way he can in his last year in office. He thinks the state would be better for it, and he’s trying to make it happen. It is perfectly legitimate to disagree with that, and to point out and oppose his machinations. Sure, fine. But this isn’t, like, a secret mysterious agenda or even an inappropriate thing for an administration to do. He is pushing his preferred policy, because he wants it to happen, even though there is unresolved opposition. Yes. It may or may not work, but the presence of opposition doesn’t de-legitimize his actions*.

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I’m a petty and vindictive person, so if I were the boss of Interior and Westlands had thrown a big fit in my office last week, I’d be quietly telling Fish and Wildlife to look around for species that need listing on the west side of the San Joaquin.  (Then, that species would be the reason that we can’t put large solar projects in the region and all my efforts would backfire, as revenge and escalation inevitably do.)  Anyway, that’s why I was amazed when I saw that the California Tiger Salamander was listed today.  Did the boss of Interior read my mind?!  But then it wasn’t a federal listing, it was a state listing.  And the range map isn’t precise enough to tell me whether it would be an irritant to Westlands.  In a boring turn of events, it looks like the listing was unrelated and Sec. Salazar is negotiating in good faith from the Interim Something Or Other Plan.  Boooo!  Booooo!

Picture ripped off from here. They’re pretty cute, with those yellow dots.

Sensitive souls should not look below the fold.  They will be SHOCKED!

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Is it bad that I’m becoming a sucker for Tim Quinn? That I find myself nodding a lot when he talks? I can’t tell what is going on with that. My younger, wild-eyed self would be horrified to see me agreeing with ACWA. ACWA! Have I become centrist and moderate, or some crap like that?! I’d hate to think it.

But Mr. Quinn seems to genuinely believe in having all sides negotiate from their position of strength (perhaps because he has done this long enough to be pained at the thought of re-negotiating everything in eight years because it wasn’t done right the first time). He talks pretty freely in public forums, and says things that I had also thought. He says he was a big part of the last year’s water legislation, and I mostly like last year’s water legislation. I’m trying to stay skeptical, so I remind myself that you don’t get to be one of the big players without being good at talking in public. I dunno, man. I might have to bargain with myself. Like Tim Quinn on the one hand, give a donation to the Earth Liberation Front on the other. To keep my self-respect.

UPDATE: Or maybe my instincts are good. Westlands’ letter of resignation from ACWA complains about Mr. Quinn.  Thank you for releasing that, Mr. Weiser.

I was pretty surprised to see that Westlands quit ACWA. I didn’t know what to make of the first reason they gave:

Spokeswoman Sarah Woolf said Westlands quit the Association of California Water Agencies because of budget priorities. Its ACWA membership cost about $19,000 a year, she said.

Westlands, the nation’s largest farm irrigation district, is engaged in a number of high-profile lawsuits against wildlife protections in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It is choosing to focus on those efforts, Woolf said.

“We just have to be very strategic on where we put our resources right now,” she said. “We are in a lot of court cases and that’s not cheap.”

One must have priorities, but what does it say about the district that they’d rather apply their money to suing than being a member of the predominant association of water agencies? (To me, it says that they don’t think they have allies, and that they think that being adversarial in court is their best remaining option.) Second, things are so tight that they can’t scrape together an additional $20K? Really? If that’s the case, that’s interesting. I don’t have the faintest idea about the internal budgeting of Westlands (although I have the vague idea that a water district’s budget is public information, so I suppose someone could get it). I’d imagine it to be in the millions, and don’t expect that the big name upper managers come cheap. So I’m surprised to hear that they’re at the point that they don’t have $20K to be part of the most mainstream, established water agency association. Are they just done with the public perception of legitimacy? They’re past it, they don’t care?

I’m afraid that is what has happened. You know, Westlands wasn’t always like this. There was a time in the late 80’s, early 90’s, when they were one of the most progressive water districts in the Valley. They were atoning for Kesterson, and they hired great people to do (at the time) very advanced water conservation and irrigation efficiency stuff. They had one of the first and best water management plans of the CVP contractors. Then the board turned, and they hired an aggressive lawyer to be their GM. Fifteen years later, I think we’re seeing the end stages of an isolationist policy. Now we know. It takes about 15-20 years (and the beginnings of climate change) for an insular, adversarial approach to run a district into the ground.

We’ve seen this before, when a group of (mostly) smart people turns inward and stops hearing outside, critical voices. (I think that brought down CALFED, for example.) The inside people stop being capable of realistically evaluating the world. They only talk to each other, and always agree with how clever they are. They double down where they should retreat, and wonder why everyone else doesn’t understand. But something has clearly gone wrong inside Westlands. They have no internal regulator anymore, so they’re just baffling to the rest of us. Remember about two years ago, when they were bargaining for what they could get in exchange for building the San Luis drain themselves? And the first thing they asked for was fee simple ownership of Los Banos reservoir and all the plumbing on the west side? Did they have no idea how that would look to everyone else? Did they think it was remotely possible? Or this bid with Sen. Feinstein? In the middle of everything going on this year, and fading hopes for passing the bond, they overreach with this crude and infuriating “jobs” rider? Now they’re quitting ACWA? One of the few avenues for a mainstream, compromising voice to reach into the district, and they quit it? This is a feedback loop, in which they get more isolated, more extreme, and more sure of themselves because they hear no objections.

I’m not on the ground in Westlands, so I have no idea if people there are self-aware enough to recognize the problem or if there is momentum building for a change in how the district engages (and shuts itself off from) the world. It is a problem for us because they’re running amok. But in the end, their isolation, absolutism and adversarial approach will hurt them most.

It isn’t like I knew anything behind the scenes when I wrote that last piece. I am so far down in the department; I hear no inside gossip. I read the news and find out about stuff that way. When I wrote that last piece, it was pure reasoning about what makes sense. But now y’all are starting to write to me, and I heard that my flippant last paragraph is, in fact, true. Secret people tell me that the big boys are huddling, trying to figure out how to get out of the shitstorm. Westlands, of course you can’t believe I’m sincere, but I am telling you truly. This is perfect for you. This is your chance. If you had planned this, I would be in awe. This is how you start the extortion to move on to your next incarnation. You can back out of that mess you made and get going on your new career in solar power in one move. You don’t deserve your good luck.

The key here is that you pulled this shit in the jobs bill. Your plausible retreat is to keep talking about jobs. You are so sorry you acted so rashly, but when you think of all those farmworkers out of work in Mendota, you just lose your head. But now you’ve realized you don’t want to destroy the environment, you want protect it. You don’t want to fight climate change to hold on to the industry of the last century; as stewards, so close to the earth, you realize you have to adapt to the reality of climate change. You want to lead the way into green energy generation. You know better than anyone that there is less annual run-off. That means less hydropower. You feel the hotter summers, meaning increased energy demand for air conditioning. You have hundreds of thousands of acres of land to put to use, and some available water for dust control and cooling. You yearn to put people back to work in this exciting new industry. You have always been adaptable. You have always worked with new technologies. You have sunshine. Pres. Obama loves green energy. You could be poster children, like British Petroleum.

You would drop this rider that has gotten people so riled up if Congress promised to get jobs for all those workers you love so much. Jobs installing subsidized solar farms, that you would own. The west side would also need some new substations and transmission, and you would be willing to sell the easements for those transmission lines, if need arose. You could tie into a methane harvestor at the CAFO in Coalinga! New infrastructure means construction jobs. Surely the kit fox could co-exist with solar panels!

Sen. Feinstein has been such a wonderful advocate for the Valley, and campaigned on climate change in her 2006 re-election campaign. Surely an experienced and tireless worker for California is just the person to connect growers in Westlands with the solar power sharks who are putting in bids on BLM lands in the desert. This is a chance to shed a few controversial desert projects as well, and I bet you could score some points with Interior for that.

Westlands, when are you going to get a better opportunity to make a good future for your district? People will give you a lot to make this jobs bill rider go away smoothly, or if you play rough, they’ll force it down your throat and be mad at you everywhere else you go. What good would two years get you? The chance to worry about your drainage, to worry about the Delta-Mendota Canal, to start whatever new groundwater regulations are coming down the pike? You giving good odds to a favorable Farm Bill next time around? You could jump on a new bandwagon right now, and start becoming a solar power empire. Think of it. Think of the all the subsidies in a start-up industry. Think of getting in early in a new field, when prices are volatile and people don’t know what to pay yet. Think about getting your smaller growers out of bankruptcy. Think of setting your corporate growers loose in an unsettled legal frontier. For that matter, imagine being policy wonks in a field that Reisner didn’t ever write about. Think of not having to give a damn about fish. Think of ditching the endless, dull salt management talks. Think of not even caring whether the stupid bond passes. Dream about not even paying attention to the February revision of the contract allocations.

This is your two-fer, Westlands. You want to keep being farmers, facing huge problems on all fronts? You looking forward to walking back into BDCP and listening to those hippies talk about fish and marsh plants? Are you expecting any good news from anywhere, or do you only fight to delay the collapse? But you have a bargaining chip now: how easily you’ll give up this rider. Use it to start your new empire. Pretend jobs (and the environment) are the reasons. You’ve got the cover of a jobs bill, the momentum of an administration who wants to do stuff in energy, and a senator who needs to save face on this.

Or, you know. Let your growers collapse individually, go into bankruptcy, and have someone else come in to collect the pieces to put solar in the west side. Whichever.

Everyone is all “powerful corporate agribusiness pulling strings in Congress for WATER GRAB!!!” but what this Feinstein/Westlands ploy shows me is that Westlands is pretty well out of options, and they don’t have enough power to pull off the options they try.

This move, Sen Feinstein adding a rider onto an entirely different Congressional jobs bill.  What does it show?  First, that the state courts aren’t getting it done for Westlands.  They’re fighting in Judge Wanger’s court, and between the two listed species (smelt and salmon) and the two species protection laws (federal and state), Judge Wanger’s efforts can’t get both sets of pumps turned on for more than a couple days.  They can’t get any traction elsewhere in the state.  Gov. Schwarzenegger may take pictures with the faux Latino Water Coalition, but he doesn’t have the clout to sway anyone on anything; the speaker from the Little Hoover Commission at the water law symposium said he sees little political will to change the ESA (state or federal); the farthest the legislature is willing to go is to create a separate panel to (maybe) OK a Peripheral Canal (in ten years) so long as every single legislator is bought off with some nice watershed projects in her district.

At the federal level on the executive side, the Obama administration doesn’t put out for Westlands.  I haven’t read even a rumor of Obama calling in the God Squad to override the Endangered Species Act.  The Interior Department has gotten picky about backing decisions with science; they didn’t move ahead on Two Gates even though Westlands wanted the project.  Secretary Salazar isn’t mouthing Westlands’ contra-factual talking points about food security.  At the recent irrigation conference, the director of Reclamation’s Mid-Pacific Region, Don Glaser, said he sees no political will to overturn the Endangered Species Act.  Westlands (and Resnick) did indeed get a pet senator to propose a rider to a jobs bill, but let’s look at that.

Westlands got one CA senator; the other is certain to be opposed.  It has be a rider on something popular, because it would go absolutely nowhere as a stand-alone measure.  As a stand-alone measure, it has already been shot down a couple times already (DeMint’s version and wasn’t there another?).  When this goes down, (which it will, since it raised quite a firestorm) where can Westlands go next?  At the federal level, the executive branch isn’t with them.  This is their best chance on the legislative side, because the circus clowns in the House are only embarrassing themselves when they hold their own special hearings and bring fishbowls to real hearings.  At the state level, the executive can’t get it done.  The state legislature did what they are willing to last year.  The judicial side is in Judge Wanger’s room, and locked in knots.  Public opinion?  The public doesn’t know much about Westlands; thinks the 5 is ugly; and if they do know any tidbit at all, they quote Reisner.  Corporate agribusiness¹!!  This jobs bill rider is Westland’s best shot, and it is a crappy one.  When it fails, what is their next venue?  The next California elections can only bring in a more hostile administration.  They don’t have a next venue, except maybe the collaborative Bay-Delta Conservation Plan.

They don’t even have this venue.  A day after a wishy-washy announcement by Sen. Feinstein, the LA Times, the SF Chron and the Bee slammed the measure.  Since then, everyone has piled on with additional commentary.  The blogs are digging into what usually slips through as banal rhetoric.  This sort of thing doesn’t go un-noticed any more; there is no cover for legislative moves.  Other legislators are standing up to Sen. Feinstein.  The public is deeply primed to repeat any story that sounds like a Reisner characterization (agribusiness, bought politician, water grab).  And this move has pissed people off.  Seriously, the worst case for Westlands is that Sen. Feinstein somehow gets it through.  Imagine it passes, and the water Feinstein wants to deliver comes out of Met’s allotment.  Really, Westlands?  You want Met as an angry enemy?  You were hoping to personally piss off twenty million people south of the Tehachapis²?   Think of all the stories this summer about rationing water in LA so that Westlands can grow an extra hundred thousand acres of cotton.  Every last water district in LA will point straight to Westlands when they have to raise rates.   “The drought is over, but you can’t water your lawn because some corporate growers took your water to grow alfalfa in the desert.”  Imagine it passes and  causes the collapse of BDCP.  Do you have any idea what the agencies have invested in BDCP?  Westlands may think that because it is the last good hope, because so much has been spent on it, they can fuck with BDCP and people will have to go along.  But if they actually break BDCP, Westlands will be the people who killed the last good hope and agency staff will be beyond furious.  Suppose it passes, and the pumping kills a bunch of salmon.  Then enviros can legitimately say that Westlands (and Westlands alone, because they’re the ones who rigged this) is not only bird-deformers, but salmon-enders.  This move was a serious over-extension for Westlands; they cannot have thought about how it would turn out for them if it actually worked.  Perhaps they thought it would quietly slip by, but those days are gone.

Westlands’ best bet is a fast retreat, vowing new appreciation and love for collaborative solutions.  They won’t win this, and it would be a huge disaster for them if they somehow did^{2, 3}.  I suggest:  “Because we love BDCP so damn much, we are voluntarily asking Sen. Feinstein, wonderful person that she is, to please join us and the NAS review in exploring long terms options for the health of the Delta and the farming economy.  P.S. Vote for the bond.”  Then Westlands should fire the person who thought of this.  It showed the rest of us that they don’t have better options than this terrible idea, and they don’t even have the power to pull it off.

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