| Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on August 10 signed Assembly Bill 1265 (Caballero and Jeffries), a measure that would delay the controversial $11.14 billion water bond until November 2012.
Schwarzenegger signed the bill to delay Proposition 18 the day after it passed through the Assembly on a 54-22 vote - the bare minimum required for a two-thirds vote. The Senate approved the measure on a 27-7 vote earlier that day.
In contrast with usual plethora of press releases, photos and video clips that the Governor's Office sends to media outlets whenever he signs a bill, the bill signing was only indicated by a terse announcement from his office that AB 1265 and a companion measure, AB 1260 (Fuller) had been signed. AB 1260 specifies that the newly-appointed members of the California Water Commission, the panel charged with allocating funding for surface storage projects if the bond is approved by voters, are to serve a four-year term expiring in May 2014.
The lack of support by Californians for Schwarzenegger's water bond spurred the Legislature to delay this measure, so there wasn't really any way that the Governor and his publicists could spin this as a "victory." Bond opponents, who campaigned for the outright repeal of the bond, still consider the delay a huge victory for environmental justice, imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations and all Californians.
"In the end, the push to postpone the bond to 2012 passed by the smallest of margins," said Elanor Starmer of Food and Water Watch, who described the vote as a situation of "when a loss is still a victory."
"It's not what bond opponents wanted," Starmer stated. "Ideally, the legislature would have seen the light and scrapped it altogether, or let the voters pull the plug this November so we could get to work on better approaches."
However, she noted that despite the passage of a bill that keeps the bond alive for another two years, "bond opponents should claim victory."
"The pro-bond lobby, which includes deep-pocketed construction, developer and agribusiness interests, wanted to see the bond passed this year," she stated. "Passing it was a priority for the Schwarzenegger administration; the governor's PAC, Schwarzenegger's California Dream Team, funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pro-bond campaign."
Dave Cogdill, a cosponsor of the bill, and other bond proponents lauded the passage of AB 1265.
"At the end of last year, the Legislature made history by approving the first major investment in our water infrastructure in almost half a century," claimed Cogdill, who authored the legislation initially authorizing the bond for voter approval. "Mindful of the current economic slowdown, I support the move to give voters more time to understand this critical investment and give the state's economy more time to rebound."
"We know the decision to move the bond to the November 2012 ballot was a difficult one, but we applaud legislative leaders for working together to guide this through the process and set a new date to place this important measure before the voters," echoed Paul Kelley, president of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA).
Bond opponents blasted the bond for funding the infrastructure needed to build the peripheral canal and new dams. Due to overwhelming opposition to the bond by fishing groups, environmentalists, Indian Tribes, labor unions, family farmers and Delta residents, the Governor will leave office without setting in place the infrastructure for the canal that he has so relentlessly campaigned for over the past three years.
A bi-partisan coalition of legislators worked hard to prevent AB 1265 from passing, knowing that the water bond "would not get better with time," according to the No on 18 Campaign. Assemblymember Jared Huffman, who led the charge in the Assembly to pass last year's water package, was a vocal opponent of now delaying the bond.
Legislators of both parties, including the entire Delta delegation of Democrats Mariko Yamada and Joan Buchanan and Republican Bill Berryhill, joined Huffman in the Assembly. Twenty-two assembly members stood firm with the many environmental, fishing, tribal, labor and consumer groups opposing AB 1265.
In the Senate, Senator Lois Wolk of Davis, another Delta legislator, rallied the Democrats who had opposed the bond last year. Senators Corbett, DeSaulnier, Hancock, Para, Leno and Yee joined with Republican George Runner in opposing AB 1265.
The No on Proposition 18 legislative co-chairs, Senator Lois Wolk (D) and Assemblymember Bill Berryhill (R), portrayed the delay as a victory and vowed to defeat the bond two years from now.
"While we may have (narrowly) lost the fight to keep the bond on this ballot, we must remember that they're moving it in the first place because of the hard work and dedication of everyone on this team," said Assemblymember Bill Berryhill (R - Ceres). "This is a victory for us. As long as we use the next two years to continue to work together and educate people on this bond, I know we can defeat it just as soundly two years from now."
"I welcome the action taken to remove the bond from the 2010 ballot, although simply postponing it to 2012 has done nothing to address my concerns or the concerns of the voters," said Senator Lois Wolk (D - Davis). "It is still bloated with unnecessary pork and still fails to address the most important water issue in the state, the unsustainable over-reliance on the Delta for our water supply."
"I intend to get to work with other legislators and water policy advocates on a smart water financing plan that focuses on reducing our reliance on the Delta. A plan that is in touch with our times and recognizes our fiscal realities, not a lobbyist driven wish-list that saddles our children and grandchildren with more and more debt," said Wolk.
Representatives of environmental, fishing and tribal groups agreed with Wolk and Berryhill.
"We heard a laundry list of reasons why the bond is bad for California during the legislative debate on AB 1265," said Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta. "Yet the legislature voted to keep the measure afloat for another two years. The problems with the bond will only grow more glaring with time."
Voter disapproval of the bond has been strong since its razor-thin passage in November 2009 in during a special session called by Schwarzenegger. Faced with certain defeat by the voters in November, Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg decided to postpone the bond for two years.
"The existing bond should have been withdrawn permanently, not delayed," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "In 2012, we need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a bond measure that will foster water conservation, water reuse and ground water management and provide permanent protection for the Delta and fish."
Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe, was disappointed by the Legislature's refusal to repeal the bond at a time that California is in its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
"We're looking at a massive deficit in the state, with services being cut left and right, and the legislators are still pushing this massive log up a road that leads nowhere," said Franco. "They're blocking all traffic to all of the good things that they could be doing, such as promoting water use efficiency programs and making sure that we have sufficient water in the rivers for the salmon and other fish that we are trying to bring back."
The work by the broad coalition that organized against the bond and peripheral canal kept the Water Bond from being passed this year but it isn't over yet. The Governor and his collaborators will continue to push his schemes to build the canal and new dams through his Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) process and the Delta Stewardship Council.
The peripheral canal, backed by Governor Schwarzenegger, corporate agribusiness, and southern California water agencies, is likely to lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whale populations. The canal/tunnel would cost an estimated $23 billion to $53.8 billion, according to economist Steven Kasower.
Opponents of the water bond include a broad array of environmental, fishing, tribal, consumer, family farming, labor and family farming groups.
Organizations opposing the bond include the California Teachers Association, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Sea Urchin Commission, Clean Water Action, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Friends of the River, Food and Water Watch, Inter-Tribal Water Commission of California, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Planning and Conservation League, Restore the Delta, Sierra Club California, United Farmworkers Union, Winnemem Wintu Tribe and many others.
For more information, go to: http://www.VoteNoOn18.org. |
