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IN THIS ISSUE – “Money finds a way in politics”
Sean McMorris, program manager at good-government group California Common Cause
- Assembly Speaker Rendon’s Quiet Exit Goes Loud:
- Sacramento Political Power Couples – Rendon Brings Renewed Ethics Issues…For His Successor & Atty. Gen. Too
- Half-Dozen Key Aides Fired
- Legislature Hears Business Support & Enviro Opposition for Controversial Newsom Bills to “Build, Build, Build” Infrastructure
- New Poll: Voters Support Governor’s Infrastructure Reform; Express Economic Fears
- Widespread Tech Layoffs Go Viral, Depress West Coast Economy
- “Has California Lost Its Mojo?”
- High Tide for Water Rights Reform in the Legislature
- SF Leads Wastewater Recycling
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique client service.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING JUNE 9, 2023
LA Times
When California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) steps down from his powerful post at the end of the month, he’ll leave behind a legacy as one of the state’s longest-serving legislative leaders, having helped Democrats secure stronger labor protections for gig workers, launch universal preschool and extend a marquee program to combat climate change during his seven-year tenure.
Off the Assembly floor, Rendon is also one-half of a political power couple that includes Annie Lam, a successful consultant and nonprofit executive who’s dedicated her career to diversifying California politics and other institutions of power.
The two have flourished together during Rendon’s unusually long time as speaker. He’s held the position longer than anyone but Willie Brown, who led the Assembly in the 1980s and 1990s.
As Rendon’s influence grew, financial and lobbying disclosures show that Lam’s consultancy business similarly boomed. Over the years Rendon served as speaker, Lam has founded a nonprofit, taken on several new clients and became the executive director of six total organizations, work that allowed her income to swell and public profile to soar.
Though Lam is not a lobbyist, she is paid by an organization that lobbies the Legislature. The League of California Cities has reported paying Lam’s business nearly $600,000 over the last year and a half as it lobbied lawmakers on bills related to housing, homelessness and public safety.
The arrangement is legal, and Lam said her success has nothing to do with her husband’s job. Rendon said his wife’s employment has not affected his decisions as speaker or how he votes on legislation.
A spokesperson for the League of California Cities said Lam helps support the group’s diversity goals and does not lobby on bills.
The lofty payments to Lam and her proximity to one of the most powerful politicians in California have raised questions about the potential for spouses to profit from their partners’ public service and create conflicts of interest in the state Capitol.
“It’s not a terrible thing for her to be employed in that way, presuming that she has that expertise to give that advice,” said Ann Ravel, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and former chair of the state watchdog agency, the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
“But what it comes right down to is a question of ethics, and a question of whether or not it’s impairing the ability of the elected official to be impartial and to make decisions that are in the best interest of the state when there is this financial impact on him.”
This is not the first time interests that lobby California politicians have forged financial ties with political spouses, prompting concerns about undue influence. Senate leader Toni Atkins, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, all Democrats, have faced similar scrutiny, while several lawmakers are married to people who work for organizations that lobby the Legislature or have a financial stake in legislation.
Even as Rendon and Cal Cities have seemingly complied with reporting requirements, experts say more can be done to ensure greater transparency from elected officials. That includes modifying the annual statements of economic interest to require additional details on how much their spouses or they themselves are making on work outside the Capitol, rather than asking them to check a box with a range. That could provide the public greater insight into their personal wealth and financial interests.
“It is really important to have some specificity,” Ravel said. “Because just checking off $100,000 or more, it could be millions. So people are really not getting the information that they need to assess whether that amount of money — and the amount of money is significant — has created some kind of a conflict.”
Those transparency changes could have a ripple effect beyond Rendon and Lam.
Reports from both The Times and the Sacramento Bee found that companies lobbying Newsom’s office also helped fund his wife’s nonprofit and salary. Another analysis by The Times found that as Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins’ clout grew in the Capitol, her wife’s consulting business similarly soared.
Then-Assemblymember Rob Bonta, now California’s attorney general, founded a foundation while he was in the Legislature that gave $25,000 to a nonprofit where his wife was earning a six-figure salary as CEO, according to a 2020 CalMatters investigation. And a 2021 Sacramento Bee report found that corporations with business before the Legislature were donating to nonprofits connected to Lam.
“Money finds a way in politics,” said Sean McMorris, a program manager at the good-government group California Common Cause.
“Both the politician that is in power and the spouse that is potentially operating in the same field or sphere, they’re going to be much more scrutinized about why they are doing what they do and why they are making the amount of money that they do. And there’s also going to be questions about is that money going to influence potentially, either explicitly or implicitly.”
Rendon’s tenure as speaker is slated to come to an end later this month.
But questions about the financial ties between family members of powerful politicians and interest groups that hold sway at the Capitol are not likely to vanish.
At the end of June, Rendon is expected to hand the gavel to Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister). Rivas’ brother, Rick Rivas, has served as a political advisor to Govern for California and a vice president of the American Beverage Assn., two groups that lobby the Legislature.
In Rendon’s case, while his voting record shows he was not always aligned with the League of California Cities’ positions, Lam earned significant sums from several of the group’s caucuses. More broadly, Rendon’s financial disclosures show that Lam’s income grew as he gained power.
In 2016, the first year he served as speaker, Rendon’s statement of economic interests showed that his 50% share of Lam’s income ranged from $10,001 to $100,000. By 2018, Rendon’s share had exceeded $100,000, meaning Lam’s business was raking in more than $200,000. It’s unclear exactly how much Lam was making, because disclosure forms only require lawmakers to report an income range.
For more than a decade, Lam has contracted with the League of California Cities, or Cal Cities, to provide consulting services as executive director to three of the organization’s diversity caucuses. She went to work for the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus in 2013, then took on the Women’s Caucus in 2017 and the LGBTQ Caucus four years after that, according to Rendon’s filings. The caucuses operate as branches of Cal Cities that advocate for issues important to city council members and other elected officials who identify with those populations.
Cal Cities is a regular fixture in the Capitol because it lobbies for the interests of hundreds of local governments that want to shape policy concerning housing, homelessness, public safety and labor regulations. While it has scored some significant wins — successfully blocking a bill to create social housing last year and fighting for $1 billion to be allocated in the state budget to alleviate homelessness — Cal Cities doesn’t always prevail. In recent years, as the state grapples with a worsening housing affordability crisis, lawmakers have pushed back on cities’ demands to maintain local control.
Lam shows up on Cal Cities’ lobbying disclosures, in a section where the organization must detail any expenses that benefit “in whole or in part” elected officials or their immediate family members.
Over the last year and a half, Cal Cities paid Lam’s business $599,932.26, the lobbying reports show. The payments range from $3,000 in a single quarter to more than $188,000, but frequently top $75,000 over a three-month span and compete with how much Cal Cities pays its lobbyists. During the first three months of this year, Cal Cities paid Lam’s business more than $93,000 while it paid roughly $110,924 combined to multiple lobbyists.
Cal Cities did not report how much it paid Lam’s business prior to the final quarter of 2021, when it formally recognized the diversity caucuses as “sub-units” of the organization in its bylaws.
“I have been successful in my two-decade career because I am great at my job,” Lam wrote in an email to The Times. “I have worked hard over the past 20 years to develop my expertise. My accomplishments are my own, and my career is my own, which I started prior to marrying my husband. I love my husband, and I’m proud of him. But this is my career. I stand on my own abilities, accomplishments, and successes.”
Lam’s career in Sacramento began in the early 2000s, when she worked in the offices of Assemblymembers Judy Chu, now in Congress, and Mike Eng, Chu’s husband. In launching her consulting business, Lam has worked to promote Asian and Pacific Islander representation in politics and elevate women and other marginalized groups into power.
“Ms. Lam’s compensation reflected the undeniable value she delivered for the Diversity Caucuses,” Lam’s attorney, Charles H. Jung wrote in a statement to The Times after the story initially published. “She was responsible for a 4-fold expansion of membership within the API Caucus, a more than doubling of programming for the LGBTQ Caucus, and a greater than 6-fold increase in membership for the Women’s Caucus.”
When it comes to policy and budget decisions he makes as speaker, Rendon’s record supporting Cal Cities is mixed. In some instances, he has split with Cal Cities’ legislative positions and voted for bills they oppose.
He helped shepherd a deal last year on two housing bills that Cal Cities opposed, effectively clearing the path to Newsom’s signature. The year before, Rendon voted for another controversial housing measure that Cal Cities also opposed, which narrowly passed his chamber. He also voted for bills to eliminate minimum parking requirements in certain neighborhoods close to public transit, which Cal Cities said it “actively fought against,” and another measure that makes it easier for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units, also known as granny flats or casitas.
In other instances, Rendon has advanced Cal Cities’ goals. As speaker, he has enormous power to shape the state budget. Cal Cities trumpeted its success in a 2022 year-end report, which celebrated securing billions of dollars in the 2022-2023 budget to help local governments mitigate homelessness, comply with recycling regulations, increase the behavioral and mental health workforce, revitalize public libraries, fund environmental and green energy initiatives and increase the affordable housing supply, among other priorities.
Rendon led the Assembly to approve a sweeping and controversial new program that Cal Cities supported over objections from civil libertarians and advocates for people with disabilities. The program, called CARE Court, will compel Californians struggling with mental illness and addiction into treatment. Rendon also routinely aligns with Cal Cities by supporting many less controversial bills the organization lobbies for. Last year, that included new laws that gave local governments more time to comply with composting requirements, cracked down on catalytic converter theft and added resources for first-responder suicide prevention.
“I vote for bills based on the policy itself,” Rendon said.
“Annie doesn’t lobby,” Rendon said, adding that his wife’s success “has to do with her hard work and her talents and the fact that she has been working in politics since before we met.”
“She’s hard-working, she’s intelligent, she’s experienced. She’s worked in this realm before I worked in this realm,” he said.
Ravel said Rendon’s voting record indicates some independence, even though he’s economically benefiting from Lam’s work with the caucuses.
“I think it does matter that he has done that, and that’s a plus,” Ravel said of his votes against Cal Cities’ positions.
MORE:
Departing Speaker Rendon Fires 6 Key Aides
Politico California Playbook
A half dozen staffers to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon are being dismissed from the speaker’s office, POLITICO has learned, as we get closer to a planned end-of-June transition from Rendon to Assemblymember Robert Rivas. It’s a harbinger of more change to come as Rivas likely brings on senior staffers and, at some point, doles out choice committee chairmanships.
Legislature Hears Business Support & Enviro Opposition for Controversial Newsom Bills to “Build, Build, Build” Infrastructure
Politico California Playbook
Gov. Newsom has said big changes are needed to California’s environmental laws to “build, build, build” infrastructure projects to meet the state’s clean energy, transit, water and climate goals.
But environmentalists are formally opposing many of his proposals, saying they could endanger California’s wildlife and biodiversity as well as the health and safety of people in lower-income, racially diverse neighborhoods.
Through the budget’s expedited policy process, the governor has proposed changing the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Endangered Species Act and the Delta Reform Act, among others, to streamline or accelerate projects.
“We understand the desire to create greater certainty and faster timelines,” Jonathan Pruitt, an advocate with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, told reporters on Monday. But “such policies can actually disproportionately harm low-income neighborhoods.”
For instance, he said, under the governor’s proposed changes, certain highway expansions could be expedited, potentially increasing freight traffic in neighborhoods, or energy projects could exacerbate pollution in some areas.
A coalition of business groups and labor unions issued a letter of support for the governor’s proposed changes.
The letter: “The infrastructure streamlining package is essential to accelerate critical energy, water and transportation infrastructure projects we need to achieve California’s world-leading climate goals while also preparing our economy for the future and creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying, union construction careers.”
Environmentalists are also worried about how quickly Newsom is moving. They said the changes should not be considered as part of the state budget process, where he has more leverage, but instead, they should be subject to rigorous analysis and debate.
The governor made his proposals May 19, giving the Legislature less than a month to consider the changes since it must pass a budget by June 15.
New Poll: Voters Support Governor’s Infrastructure Reform; Express Economic Fears
Public Policy Institute of California
In a new Public Policy Institute of California poll released this week, nearly 60% say they favor changing CEQA to make housing more affordable.
In that survey, more than a quarter of Californians cited jobs, the economy and inflation as a top issue facing the state.
The survey of 1,576 California residents conducted between May 17 and May 24, found that 27% of Californians worry about the economy, while other issues getting double digit support include homelessness (16%) and housing costs and availability (11%). Rounding out the top five concerns are crime (7%) and the environment (6%).
Nearly 60% of Californians believe that the state has entered into an economic recession, with six in 10 adults saying they’ve experienced hardships due to rising prices. Forty-six percent say housing prices have placed a financial burden on them.
The darkening public mood about the economy is a bit of a contrast to the guarded optimism expressed by experts in the new UCLA Anderson forecast, also released Wednesday. It says California’s economy is likely to outperform the nation’s in the near-future.
As Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers grapple over a budget containing a deficit in the tens of billions, 39% of likely voters said the state budget situation is a big problem, that includes 24% of Democrats, 64% of Republicans and 40% of independents.
The good news for Newsom is that 61% of likely voters generally favor the governor’s approach, which involves avoiding a dip into the state’s Rainy Day Fund reserves. However, 56% of likely voters disagree with Newsom’s mixture of cuts and spending delays on programs including workforce training, transportation, housing and programs to fight climate change. Just 42% think those cuts and spending delays are a good idea, according to the PPIC.
Newsom and the State Legislature continue to enjoy a slight majority of support from likely voters, with 56% favoring the governor and 50% supporting state lawmakers.
POLL:
https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-june-2023/
Widespread Tech Layoffs Go Viral, Depress West Coast Economy
Wall Street Journal excerpt
The West Coast tech downturn is sending a chill through the region’s economies, hitting workers and businesses in a variety of other industries.
Janitors and teachers, and restaurants and dry cleaners in California, Oregon, and Washington are feeling the cooling effects of tens of thousands of tech layoffs and other cost-cutting measures since the middle of last year. The results include higher unemployment, falling wages, pinched state budgets and slower job growth.
California had the nation’s second-highest state unemployment rate in April at 4.5%, Washington tied for third at 4.3%, and Oregon was close behind at 4%, according to the Labor Department. While low by historical standards, the readings were higher than the national rate of 3.4% in April. The U.S. rate rose to 3.7% in May.
The rise in West Coast unemployment follows layoffs by Microsoft, Facebook parent Meta Platforms and other large employers reversing their pandemic hiring spree, and by other businesses that had thrived on the companies’ related spending.
The economic downturn is hammering California’s state budget. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office in May estimated the state’s budget deficit at $32 billion, $10 billion wider than estimated in January—and a sharp reversal after a historic $102 billion surplus in the past two fiscal years.
Among the reasons: lower earnings among the wealthy. An estimated 1% of filers pay nearly half of the state’s total income tax.
Job growth has cooled more in California than nationwide over the past year. The state’s tech-heavy information sector and construction firms cut jobs from a year earlier in April. Over the past year, California’s employment has been nearly flat in finance and in the trade, transportation and utility fields, which includes warehouse and store workers, according to the Labor Department. “Technology is what has driven a lot of the weakness recently but it’s beyond that,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist for Bank of the West in San Francisco. He noted downturns in construction and housing. He said tech jobs might not rebound in the region to previous highs, which has ripple effects through the West Coast.
Factors beyond technology cuts have hampered the labor market. The Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases to fight high inflation have cooled demand for big-ticket purchases, such as homes, industrial machinery and household appliances. As a result, payrolls in finance, manufacturing and retail have stagnated.
However, while the U.S. unemployment rate fell this year to the lowest level since 1969, West Coast states’ rates were all up from last year’s lows.
Average wages have plummeted in areas where high-paying tech jobs are concentrated. San Francisco County had the largest drop in weekly wages, 22.6%, of any large county in the country last year, the Labor Department said. Seattle’s King County, Wash., saw a 5.4% decline, ranking 339th in wage growth out of the 356 largest U.S. counties. Washington County, Ore., home to the state’s tech cluster, ranked 319th, with a 4.3% decline.
Fewer white-collar workers in San Francisco’s financial district means Carina Nuñez is earning less money as a janitorial worker. In addition to layoffs, many office workers continue to work remotely several days a week.
Nuñez’s hours have been cut, and as a result her weekly pay of about $600 is roughly 50% lower than a few years ago. She said that is barely enough to keep her and her husband, who also works, afloat. “Everything we have goes to rent,” Nuñez said, adding she is considering moving. “We don’t have anything in the bank.”
She has cleaned the office of an e-commerce company for many years and recalls when she waded through crowds to arrive at work. “There were many more people then, now there aren’t,” Nuñez said. “It’s very lonely.”
“Has California Lost Its Mojo?”
CalMatters commentary from Dan Walters
Has California lost its mojo?
This question, framed in various ways in media and political venues, has hung over the state in recent years as its population declined after more than 150 years of growth, as some major corporations (and their workers) decamped for other states, and as poverty, homelessness, urban street crime and other social maladies festered.
While California’s critics and defenders, both internal and external, cite isolated anecdotes and data points to bolster their arguments, there have been very few comprehensive and objective examinations of California’s strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis its rivals.
Until now.
On Monday, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce released a deeply sourced and fair-minded study of California’s past, current and perhaps future economic standing, indirectly warning the state’s politicians that they should not take the state’s prosperity for granted because its rivals are gaining ground.
“We argue that California has been, and continues to be, the perennial winner in the overall competition that is the economic equivalent of an Olympic decathlon among the nation’s states,” the study declares. “However, other states have narrowed the gap or even captured top honors in an increasing number of event contests.”
In a statement, Maria Salinas, the Los Angeles chamber’s president, said: “We wanted to look at why California-based businesses continue to leave and whether the state was doing enough to stem the flow of business outbound migration.”
A major aspect of the study is viewing California not so much as a single entity but as a collection of regions, each with strengths and weaknesses, with a particularly focus, understandably, on Southern California.
It notes that while the Southland contains most of the state’s population and jobs, it generates only about 40% of California’s economic output – a disparity compared to Northern California, which has emerged over the last few decades. While Northern California, especially the Bay Area, focused on developing a high-technology economy, Southern California’s leaders opted for logistics – becoming a center for the global movement of goods – and its long-standing entertainment industry.
The study suggests that due to the state’s regional differences, “a one-size-fits-all approach to economic development in the 21st century must give way to a regional approach, one that not only looks at the differences across the state’s regions but also incorporates a meaningful understanding of the regions around the country to which the state’s regions have economic ties.”
“Other states are catching up to California in part because their regions more closely resemble California’s in terms of industry composition, workforce opportunities and amenities,” the study concludes. “In fact, given the acceleration in firm and population migration over the past decade, it appears that the gap between California and its closest competitor states has narrowed significantly since the Great Recession. The question is, what steps must it take to maintain its advantage over other states in the coming years?”
The chamber’s release of its economic study is quite timely, coming as Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature consider dozens of bills that could affect California’s competitive position. They include those addressing the high cost of housing that is a major factor in personal and corporate departures, homelessness, taxes, employment costs and regulation, including the California Environmental Quality Act.
Unfortunately, one senses that those in the Capitol lack awareness that California is competing with other states for job-creating investment. Their prevailing attitude is that California will always be an economic powerhouse no matter what expenses and regulations are imposed on employers at the behest of powerful interest groups.
The facts presented by the Los Angeles chamber’s study underscore the fallacy of that assumption.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/06/california-economy-study-competitive-decline/
LA CHAMBER STUDY:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yqv1hf80u2cavi/California%20Competitiveness-Study.pdf?dl=0
High Tide for Water Rights Reform in the Legislature
LA Times
California’s complex system of water rights took shape starting in the mid-1800s, when settlers saw the state’s water as abundant and free for the taking — a time when a Gold Rush prospector could stake claim to river flows simply by nailing a notice to a tree.
Today, California’s oldest and most senior water rights — called riparian and pre-1914 rights — have been passed along to thousands of agricultural landowners, irrigation districts and urban water suppliers that claim control of roughly one-third of the water that is diverted from the state’s rivers and streams. But increasingly, state water regulators are struggling to manage supplies for 39 million residents, agriculture and the environment as climate change warps the hydrologic cycle and brings longer-lasting and more severe droughts.
Legal experts say the way the state manages this antiquated system is in dire need of reform. Among other problems, they say, current law prevents officials from verifying whether claims of senior water rights are valid, ordering those water users to reduce usage, or imposing fines that are large enough to penalize those who flout the rules.
Three bills gaining momentum in the Legislature are seeking to change that, even as they draw heated opposition from water agencies and agricultural groups.
“These bills show that the Legislature is taking a serious look at bringing more comprehensive and consistent regulation to water rights — and empowering the State Water Resources Control Board to do the job California needs it to do,” said Nell Green Nylen, a senior research fellow at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Wheeler Water Institute.
Green Nylen is part of a group of legal experts who recently published a state-funded report outlining recommendations for legislative and policy changes to improve oversight and management of the water rights system. She said the bills in the Legislature would partially address some of their recommendations, while still leaving some “concerning gaps in the state’s ability to manage water scarcity.”
One bill — AB 1337, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) — would clarify that the State Water Board has authority to issue a curtailment order for all diverters, including senior rights holders. The legislation was drafted in response to a recent decision by an appeals court, which sided with water agencies in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that had challenged the state’s authority to order cuts. In its decision, the court suggested it’s up to the Legislature to determine whether it’s time to update the law.
Another measure approved by the Senate, SB 389, would give the State Water Board the authority to investigate and verify whether the claims of senior rights holders are valid and accurate.
“They’ve got to have more tools at their disposal to better understand the rights system as it exists,” said Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who introduced the proposal.
California’s existing water rights allocate far more water than is available in an average year, Allen noted, and state water regulators are tasked with making the system work during increasingly intense droughts.
Another bill, AB 460, would strengthen the State Water Board’s enforcement powers to stop illegal water diversions and would sharply increase fines for violators.
The bill is intended to prevent the sort of violations that occurred in August in the Shasta River watershed, when farmers and ranchers who belong to the Shasta River Water Assn. defied a curtailment order for eight days and diverted more than half the river’s flow, flouting requirements aimed at protecting salmon. The State Water Board fined the association the maximum amount for the violation: $4,000, which worked out to about $50 for each of its members.
The case led to widespread calls for larger fines and stronger enforcement powers.
The bill would give the State Water Board the authority to issue temporary orders to stop the illegal taking of water, and would increase fines for violations to up to $10,000 per day, plus $2,500 per acre-foot of water diverted. (An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or enough to cover one acre a foot deep.)
Some environmental groups and tribes have called for a major overhaul of the state’s water rights, arguing that the current system was built on a foundation of violence against Native people, the taking of land from tribes, and systemic racism that long prevented people of color from securing water rights.
Supporters of the reform proposals in the Legislature say the bills aren’t meant to radically change the existing system, but rather to make a dysfunctional system work.
“These modest changes are a first step in retrofitting the water rights system for the 21st century challenges ahead,” said Amanda Fencl, a senior climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. She said the measures offer critical updates to enable the State Water Board “to make informed and timely water management decisions and build climate resilience for the future.”
The proposals are facing opposition from many water agencies and groups representing the agriculture industry.
The three bills “all create increased uncertainty in the water supply, which would make it harder for growers to plan — and could result in fewer planned acres of food grown,” said Gail Delihant, senior director of California government affairs for Western Growers, which represents more than 1,500 crop growers, packers and shippers.
Delihant said the measures represent “attempts to destabilize the water rights system in California.”
Also opposing the bills is the Assn. of California Water Agencies, or ACWA, which represents about 460 public agencies that deliver water to cities and farms. Kristopher Anderson, a legislative advocate for ACWA, said the bills “present a foundational change in the way California’s water rights system is implemented, managed, and enforced.”
“They would authorize the State Water Board to impose punitive penalties on even law-abiding water right holders, curtail water rights in any year, and strip entities of their water rights,” he said. “This package of legislation would create significant uncertainty, and lead to unintended consequences, for not just water right holders themselves, but communities and businesses across the state that depend on a reliable water supply.”
In a letter opposing Wicks’ bill, representatives of dozens of water districts and agriculture industry groups said they support proposals to “modernize administration” of the water rights system by improving how the state collects and manages data, and by deploying more stream gages, among other steps.
They argued that as it stands, the proposal “threatens to remake the way water rights are managed in California by employing a top-down approach that would override decades of successful collaborative water management practices.”
In a February meeting, state officials said there are currently about 2,600 riparian and pre-1914 water rights claims in the San Joaquin River watershed, and more than 3,900 rights claims in the Sacramento River watershed. The rights are held by various entities and individuals, among them agencies that supply cities and agricultural irrigation districts supplying farms that produce nuts, cotton, rice and other crops.
In their recent report, Green Nylen and other water law researchers recommended various changes to establish what they say would be a fair and effective framework for curtailing water rights. They said that the Legislature should clarify, among other things, that the State Water Board has broad authority to order curtailments for all diverters, including those with the oldest rights.
The researchers said the State Water Board “needs to implement curtailments on a regular basis, not only in times of extreme crisis or only in certain watersheds.” They noted that other western states routinely curtail water rights in this way.
Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley School of Law, said it’s vital that state officials look ahead now to improve how the system functions to respond to the next drought.
“Our system for water administration in California just doesn’t work,” Kiparsky said. “It doesn’t work because the state doesn’t have the tools it needs to do the basics. Those basics include figuring out who should have the right to divert water from rivers and streams at any particular time, and telling those who should not be diverting water that they can’t. It’s a very basic function.”
Yale e-360
San Francisco leads a growing movement to recycle wastewater from commercial buildings and homes for nonpotable uses, such as flushing toilets and watering landscaping.
On-site recycling, proponents say, will help conserve water in an era of increasing scarcity and could eventually allow buildings to be completely “water neutral,” reusing the same water again and again in a closed loop. “There is no reason to only use water once,” says an expert. “We now have technologies to enable us to process and reuse water over and over, at the scale of a city, a campus, and even an individual home.” https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-site-distributed-premise-graywater-blackwater-recycling