Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 12, 2009
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
No mercury warnings on tuna cans, court rules
San Francisco Chronicle
Earmarks mean millions for Sacramento-area projects
Local projects
The bills of water, real and imagined
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No mercury warnings on tuna cans, court rules
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/12/09
(03-11) 15:22 PDT
Although there is no dispute that methylmercury that contaminates fish is toxic to human reproductive systems, there is evidence that some mercury is "naturally occurring," such as from rainfall and possibly from vents on the ocean floor, Justice Timothy Reardon wrote.
The ruling upholds a 2006 lower-court decision in favor of Chicken of the Sea, StarKist and Bumble Bee. #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/12/BAKT16DK4P.DTL
Earmarks mean millions for Sacramento-area projects
By Rob Hotakainen
The bill includes at least $69 million for
Obama, who vowed to clamp down on earmarks during last year's presidential campaign, said that he backed the bill to keep the federal government operating. But he made it clear that he wants Congress to change its ways.
"So let there be no doubt: This piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand," Obama said.
"They support bureaucrats making all of these decisions," Boxer said. "But as elected officials, it is our job to know the priorities of our states.
"As long as we ensure that the process is transparent and there are no conflicts of interest, I think a small portion of our budget expenditures can be determined by members of Congress."
Boxer, who heads the Senate's environmental committee, got 115
Feinstein, a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, said she secured 183 projects worth nearly $780 million. But unlike Boxer, Feinstein included in her list $520 million worth of earmarks – 35 projects in all – that were also requested by the White House. And the senators' projects included much overlap.
With backing from both Boxer and Feinstein, the Senate approved the measure Tuesday night, sending it to Obama for his signature. It provides funding for nearly all government departments and agencies, which have had their funding frozen since October. As a result, none of them have been able to initiate new programs.
"This omnibus bill is long overdue," Feinstein said.
Feinstein said the bill included $189 million for transit projects, including nearly $82 million for the Los Angeles Metro gold line; $122 million for flood control projects; nearly $19 million for water recycling projects; $30 million for environmental projects, including more than $9 million to continue the restoration of the San Francisco Bay salt ponds; $169 million to construct federal facilities, including a $110 million courthouse in San Diego; and millions more for anti-crime programs.
Local Democratic representatives said the spending bill will provide a much-needed boost to the economy.
Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui of
"In the face of the current economic situation, it is vital that we continue to bring federal resources to
Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena touted his work in getting $3 million in levee improvements for
"We need to rebuild our country and our economy, and investing in infrastructure projects that keep us safe from floods is one of the smartest investments that we can make," Thompson said.
"The 44,000 residents of
While California Democrats were praising the legislation, critics said it would run up the national deficit and leave more debt to future generations. Republican Sens. McCain and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma tried to eliminate earmarks from the legislation, with no success.
The budget watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste said Obama should have vetoed the bill.
Tom Schatz, a spokesman for the nonpartisan nonprofit group, said Obama signed a bill "stuffed with thousands of pork barrel projects worth tens of billions of dollars (that will go to) entities and companies favored by members of Congress" without any review or accountability.
"Make no mistake: There is no acceptable level of congressional pork-barrel earmarking because it is a corruption of the process," Schatz said.
Even though he signed the bill, Obama noted that he ran for president "pledging to change the way business is done in
In the future, the president said, all earmarks must have a clear public purpose and will have to be displayed on members' Web sites so the public and media can easily examine them. In addition, he said, earmarks must be open to scrutiny at public hearings and not tucked into bills at the last minute, without public airing.
All of the earmarks included in the bill were requested in the last session of Congress. As a result, the lists made public include earmarks from former members such as Republican Rep. John Doolittle of
http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/1692468.html
Local projects
Here are some of the earmarks that local members of Congress inserted into the federal spending bill that President Barack Obama signed Wednesday.
Rep. Mike Thompson
D-St.
• Center for Advanced Viticulture and Tree Crop Research,
• Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel improvements – $957,000
• West Sacramento levee improvements – $3 million
Rep. Doris Matsui
D-Sacramento
• South Sacramento light-rail extension from
• City of
•
• Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento for an Internet safety program for teenagers, including equipment – $214,000
• Sacramento Police Department for its youth gang intervention and prevention program – $200,000
• Roberts Family Development Center for health programs to reduce the risk of chronic diseases – $190,000
•
•
Joint request: Thompson and Matsui
•
Rep. Dan Lungren
• City of Folsom
• City of
• International Drive extension/Folsom South Canal Bridge – $237,500
• State Route 88, Pine Grove corridor improvement project,
• City of Citrus Heights, new ADA-compliant infrastructure – $142,500
Joint requests:
Lungren and Matsui •
•
• Folsom Dam outlet modifications, for auxiliary spillway construction to manage reservoir storage – $9 million
• Folsom Dam construction, to raise dam – $2 million
Joint request:
Lungren and Thompson • Western Region Food and Drug Administration Center of Excellence for food safety research, UC Davis – $1,399,000
Rep. Wally Herger
R-Chico • Central Valley Project, Sacramento River Division improvements – $6,449,000
• Central Valley Project,
•
Joint request: Herger, Lungren and Matsui
• Sacramento River Bank Protection Project to repair erosion along the river and its tributaries – $22,967,000
Former Rep. John Doolittle R-Roseville
•
•
•
• Central Valley Project, American River Division,
• Highway 50/Missouri Flat,
• City of
• State Route 89 "Mousehole" tunnel improvement project,
•
http://www.sacbee.com/politics/story/1692469.html
The bills of water, real and imagined
By JOHN VAN DOORN
In this dry, dry part of the country ---- we can go half a year without rain ---- there is no topic more absorbing than water.
This week we are, ah, awash in the subject, hence fully absorbed.
First, Assembly Bill 1061, sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District.
This bill would grant water districts full authority to decide on usage, and render irrelevant the rules on water set so often by homeowners associations in their feudal jurisdiction over the homes and lives in their acquiescent neighborhoods.
Second, Assembly Bills 68, 925, 1358 and 283, which deal with water on a grander scale: the
This group of bills essentially goes after plastic. The Pacific grows evermore clogged in its mystic vastness with cups and foam containers, bottles and bags ---- plastic.
Authoritative voices say that two thirds of all trash in the sea is plastic, and that 90 percent of floating debris is, too. It would not be outlandish to consider changing the name to the Pacific Dumpster.
You'd have to give a distinct edge to the Met District bill, 1061, if you were an oddsmaker.
The Met has a lot of clout; giants are supposed to. The homeowners associations don't have much, except in the nabe, and even there they sometimes face opposition from homeowners fed up with Big Brother aspects in these odd domains.
In a sense, it is almost cleansing to consider that the associations may have to yield to the rules of the outside world. If at last there is justice in the land, 1061 will become law.
Not so much the other bills. It's practically tradition in the state legislature to draw up an anti-plastic bill and then watch it die or watch slivers of it become law and the rest flatline or disappear until the branch convenes once more.
So imparts Dave Downey, who is the North County Times Senior Executive Plastic, Waste and Politics Writer.
It adds up to great doubt as to the success of a bill this particular session or century. The bills above enumerated are, however, strong and green, and there is not an environmentalist or creature of the sea that would not rejoice at one's passage. We wish the bills well, but we do so with a dash of rue.
Credit where due
Darrell Issa, the congressman from
Issa is a Republican through and through, and his position on earmarks took some courage to assume, unless it was the full moon having its way with him.
All during the Bush years earmarks were as common as freckles. Nearly every lawmaker had pet projects back home that he or she sought to slip into bills on defense, health, education ---- any topic at all. Democrats did it, too.
Earmarks are without exception pure corruption, nothing more.
But they've always been winked away. Boys will be crooks. Over the years, Democrats have been as guilty as Republicans. But the present big tuna Democrat, President Barack Obama, is dead set against them and says he will see to it that the practice ends. (Except in the current budget bill, which is replete with earmarks and is thus corrupt.)
It was against these declarations of reform and "change" that Mr. Issa spoke of drawing down all his own earmarks and waiting for a clearer day. Good for him.#
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