Boxer Votes to Prevent California Farmers from Working
In an excellent article on the water shortage in the Golden State, Max Schulz gives a brief background on how massive irrigation projects helped transform the desert of the San Joaquin Valley “into a paradise, providing much of the fruits and vegetables and dairy products Americans consume.” Today, with the help of the entire Democratic caucus of the United States Senate, including the two senators from California, environmentalists may well succeed in using federal law to turn the region back into a desert.
The process began with “litigious environmental groups” going to court, suing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on behalf of a variety of species in order to “dismantle the infrastructure of California’s State Water Project (SWP) and the federal Central Valley Project (CVP).” Finally, with the delta smelt, a minnow that rarely gets bigger than three inches, they hit pay dirt:
In 2007, U.S. district judge Oliver Wanger ruled that the pumping that annually sent about 6 million acre-feet of water to Kern County and beyond was threatening the delta smelt’s existence by disrupting water flows for the fall spawning season. Citing the protections accorded by the Endangered Species Act, he ordered pumping for agricultural uses curtailed by one-third until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could evaluate the situation. After studying the issue for more than a year, the USFWS determined last December that pumping by the SWP and CVP “was likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the delta smelt and adversely modify its critical habitat.”
Water that would have fertilized fields across the Central Valley, providing jobs to tens of thousands and producing food for (potentially) millions just flows out to sea. Fields lay fallow, jobs are lost.
Environmental rulings have cost the region as many as 32,00o jobs, with 50,000 more to come if restrictions intensify. Not just that, the “lack of produce from this formerly successful agricultural area,” Ed Morrissey writes, “will hike prices across the nation — and could make us more dependent on agricultural imports.“
You’d think the Senators representing the people in this region would be concerned. But, as Sonicfrog notes, it took a South Carolina Senator to do what the Golden State Senators would not:
After watching the Hannity show broadcast from the Central Valley on Thursday, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint decided to do something about it. Today he introduced a provision in a bill that would basically suspend the Endangered Species Act in regard to the Sacramento Delta for one year, which would prevent Federally mandated restrictions from shutting off water flow from the Sacramento Delta to the San Joaquin Valley, which has cause a severe shortage of water to farmers on the west side of the valley.
This would not be the first time the Senate suspended the ESA. Six years ago, it did so “for parts of New Mexico so that people would still get water.” So, instead of considering an amendment which could have said jobs and increased the food supply, the Senate voted to table the amendment, with both California Senators voting to sideline.
I guess to Mrs. Boxer, it matters more to toe the left-wing environmental line than to look out for her Central Valley constituents.
(H/t Michelle Malkin for Senate vote tails and Schulz article.)
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Ah. I’ve been watching BWEL.PK and wondering why it isn’t doing better. This may explain it.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 23, 2009 @ 8:38 am - September 23, 2009
Alaska has a huge series of salmon ladders from which they capture the spawning salmon, raise the fry and release tons of Salmon to go out to sea. It is the backbone of the Alaska salmon industry.
Howsabout California and all the alphabet agencies grab these priceless spawning smelt and follow suit? If fire fighters can carry water by helicopter to douse the flames, they can carry huge buckets of smelt hatchlings to dump in the ocean. Think of the sea otters and seals they would feed.
Obama could appoint a Smelt Czar.
Comment by heliotrope — September 23, 2009 @ 9:00 am - September 23, 2009
Those who read the comments on this thread will see an apt demonstration of non-government America at its best at work…. Above, a commenter known as heliotrope shows more sense and ingenuity than a roomful of government czars and both of California’s Senators. Solutions to problems can be found if one takes the trouble to see. Note that heliotrope is not a blue ribbon panel and his completely doable idea involved no trip to Washington, use of focus groups, polling trial balloons or Executive consultations with SEIU, ACORN or Code Pink.
It shows how problems can be analyzed and solved by applying common sense and awareness of how the real world operates – qualities and charateristics sadly lacking in Washington DC, a city overpopulated by lawyers with no real world experience but the power to rule our lives ignorantly.
Comment by 4Deuce — September 23, 2009 @ 9:14 am - September 23, 2009
[...] toe the left-wing environmental line than to look out for her Central Valley constituents." Boxer Votes to Prevent California Farmers from Working Posted by B. Daniel Blatt at 2:46 am – September 23, 2009. Filed under: 111th Congress, [...]
Pingback by Delta Smelt — September 23, 2009 @ 9:32 am - September 23, 2009
heliotrope,
“The Lord smelts those who smelt themselves.”
Comment by The_Livewire — September 23, 2009 @ 9:39 am - September 23, 2009
The false god of the environment is demanding more than it’s pound of flesh in human sacrifice.
There is a strong strain of people who hate mankind so much they will do anything to see us fail.
Nature is more powerful than all of us. We have found ways to harness it to our purposes and that in an anathema to progressives. They would rather see millions of dead people and one live fish.
We’ve seen this in Africa with starving people who are denied genetically engineered crops.
Comment by Leah — September 23, 2009 @ 11:59 am - September 23, 2009
There is another angle to this story. From my blog:
The previous suspensions of ESA actions have not led to the extinctions of the other endangered minnows, as one minnow is recovering, and the other, while still endangered, is thriving in the area the ESA wanted to alter, which, for all we know, could have actually done them in. And there are programs in place that are bringing the silvery minnow back from the bring, reintroducing it to its former habitat. This approach is almost certainly going to be more effective at rescuing the fish than the ESA actions could ever be..
Comment by Sonicfrog — September 23, 2009 @ 12:52 pm - September 23, 2009
Actually, Sonicfrog, the snail darter survived because it was transplanted into another river, and survived there. It certainly would have gone extinct otherwise.
As for destroying human progress – well, that is a stretch. Truth is that there was a considerable opposition to the Tellico dam from the beginning – and much of the support for the snail darter fight came from people who cared more about stopping ill-thought-out projects than from protecting wildlife. The Tellico dam is pretty useless – producing no electricity. Its construction pretty much marked the high-water mark (so to speak) of the “dam everything” mindset – that inevitable stage that every successful technology reaches where people just run around applying it willy-nilly.
It was hardly a leap forward for human progress, not even a step.
Comment by Tano — September 23, 2009 @ 5:03 pm - September 23, 2009
Daniel,
I don’t think these people hate humanity. They feel whatever problems they cause by their virtuous behavior can be fixed by the ’smart people’. No No Problemo.
But consider Senator Boxer-”Becaue I worked hard for this,ya know?”
Not real honest.See husband and military contracts.
Not real modest;see,call me Senator.
And she’s certainly not bright enough to run a business,write a book people want,become a dr (or even a podiatrist) _ But she’s a senator. Pretty scary world.
Comment by corwin — September 23, 2009 @ 5:34 pm - September 23, 2009
Wow! Tano takes on one of the great FDR progressive government abuses: The Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Tellico Dam was mostly a make-work federal jobs program. It seems Tano might have some sort of disagreement with big government running big programs for social engineering. I wonder if Tano has thought out a way to stop the government steamroller when it starts social engineering health care, hate crimes, setting wages, loaning money to “deserving” people, etc., etc., etc.
Comment by heliotrope — September 23, 2009 @ 7:24 pm - September 23, 2009
I find Boxer obnoxious, for the most part, but I also am against any species becoming extinct. (As I believe everyone here is. Right?)
So why is it either/or? Do we have to wipe out a species or screw over Californians seeking agricultural jobs? Can’t we implement a system that will make everyone (including the fish) happy? How about Heliotrope’s proposal?
Comment by bmmg39 — September 23, 2009 @ 9:07 pm - September 23, 2009
Yes, the snail darter was populated into the Hiwassee River, where it thrives, but I’ve found nothing that says it no longer swims the Little Tennessee River. Point is, they found a way to preserve the minnow, and complete the Dam.
Comment by Sonicfrog — September 24, 2009 @ 12:54 am - September 24, 2009
[...] With the junior Senator from California, elected at the tail-end of a recession, having watched unemployment climb by 33% in the Golden State* during her tenure in the United States Senate, it’s clear we need a representative in Washington who knows how to create jobs. Unemployment out here is now at a post-World Wart II high. And Mrs. Boxer seems indifferent to the employment situation in the Golden State; just this week she voted to table an amendment which could have created or saved (to borrow an expression from the Pres…. [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Carly’s Website is Up; Time to Donate — September 25, 2009 @ 5:58 pm - September 25, 2009