Greenwire: Feinstein to unveil bill before August recess
Annie Snider and Geof Koss, E&E reporters
Published: Friday, July 24, 2015
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California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) is preparing to release her much-anticipated drought measure before lawmakers leave town for August recess.
In an interview this morning, Feinstein said she expects to unveil the legislation as soon as next week.
She said her package incorporates elements of a number of drought bills that have been floated in both chambers, including the controversial measure from Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) that the House passed last week and a countermeasure widely supported by regional Democrats
“What I’ve done is taken some pieces” from the Valadao bill, a bill from Northern California House Democrat Jared Huffman (H.R. 2983) and from California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer’s S. 176, she said. “We’ve made a number of changes in the short term; we strengthened the environmental provisions. So we tried to listen to people and make adjustments.”
Feinstein’s measure is slated for a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in September, along with the House-passed bill, committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said today.
“It’s a big deal, a big issue, and we want to see some action,” Murkowski told Greenwire.
Murkowski, who has been focused on her comprehensive energy legislation in recent months, has said she is also intent on doing a Westwide water package this year. Whether California-specific drought legislation would hitch a rider on that broader package or would move forward as a stand-alone measure remains to be seen.
Feinstein has already said she is interested in taking a broader look at water issues in this year’s bill than the narrow approach she took in emergency legislation last year. That will include water recycling and desalination, as well as new and expanded reservoirs, she has said.
The key question, though, is how far the Senate will go in dictating operations for water projects in California, particularly as those operations relate to endangered species protections.
Environmental and fishermen’s groups, as well as lower-chamber Democrats, fiercely opposed the House-passed bill as an opportunistic bid to dismantle the Endangered Species Act. While that measure would not rewrite the language of the 1973 law itself, it would override some of the key agency opinions about specific endangered species protections at water delivery projects.
Feinstein herself said she thought the House bill violated the Endangered Species Act, although she has also said she agrees that there is a need to increase flexibility in the state’s water delivery infrastructure.
Being able to strike that balance in a way that gives Democrats comfort about species protections will likely be key to securing enough votes on her side of the aisle to get it passed.
“The question [is] whether the Senate wants to just pass a very hyperpartisan bill, or whether they want to do something that could be enacted into law, that would be something that would generate new water supply and would help us get through the drought, and wouldn’t involve weakening environmental laws,” said Doug Obegi, a Natural Resources Defense Council water attorney, during a roundtable with reporters yesterday. “I don’t know which way they’re going to try to go.”
California lawmakers will be looking to move swiftly this fall, though, aiming to put legislative changes into effect before the winter rainy season begins.
“To do anything for next winter, we need to obviously try to get it done,” Feinstein said.
Tags: bill, California, drought, policy, water