Proposed Legislation (SB1) Threatens Voluntary Agreements on Wate

Statement by Mike Wade, California Farm Water Coalition Executive Director:

SACRAMENTO, CA – Prior to last December’s State Water Board meeting, both Governor Brown and Governor Newsom took the bold step of supporting a completely new approach to water policy. With their encouragement as well as hard work on the part of scientists, farmers, environmentalists, and other stakeholders as well as the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Natural Resources Agency, Voluntary Agreements are nearly complete. However, all the progress will be lost if SB1 goes into effect.

As written, SB1 locks California into our failed regulatory system that has not worked for anyone and has guaranteed nothing but lawsuits and delays.

And while the legislation gives lip service to supporting the VA process, make no mistake about it—SB1 would result in the colapse of the Newsom Administration’s voluntary approach to updating California water policy.

It’s hard to overstate the break-through represented by the VAs. A completely new approach to managing water, they require scientific studies and put the new science into practice. They provide an agreed-upon amount of water for river flows as well as new environmental projects and other improvements—paid for by farmers, water districts, and other users—that will help get maximum benefit from the water.

In addition, all water users will have more certainty of water flow that is simply not a part of our current system. And probably most important, because the VAs are the product of compromise and agreement on the part of all water users, we can move forward today, removing ourselves from the endless cycle of lawsuits that has dominated California water policy. Real results will be felt now, not 10 years from now.

We hope the Legislature can find a way to join the Governor in charting a new path to smarter water policy.

2019-06-17T16:37:59-07:00June 17th, 2019|

Bill Lyons is New Agricultural Liaison

Lyons Has Been An Ambassador for California Ag

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Bill Lyons of Modesto has been appointed the Agricultural Liaison by Gavin Newsom, governor of California. Lyons has been the chief executive officer of Lyons Investment Management LLC since 1976. He previously served as the Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture from 1999 to 2004.

Lyons was selected as the Western Regional Finalist for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He won the 2010 Conservationist of the Year Award and received the United States Department of Agriculture National Environmentalist Award. He has an extensive background in agriculture and water policy. He will be working with the governor’s office on a multitude of projects.

“I have been appointed to be the governor’s Ag Liaison to work with agriculture, senior staff and the governor on a multitude of different policy issues and opportunities,” he said.

The governor has shown some interest in the San Joaquin Valley.

“As everyone has noticed, the governor is committed to the Central Valley,” Lyons said.

The governor is interested in clean drinking water, the success of agriculture, and affordable housing.

Lyons’s family has worked in the valley for over 90 years.

“We started out as a cattle operation and have transformed into a more diversified farming operation with almonds, walnuts, grapes, and diversity of row crops,” he said. “We’ve been here since 1923.”

2019-04-02T16:18:36-07:00April 2nd, 2019|

Jim Patterson on Governor Newsom’s High Speed Rail Project Admissions

Patterson: “They Never Had the Land, They Never Had the Money”

News Release from Assembly Member Jim Patterson

Governor Newsom put the final nail in the coffin of high speed rail recently. His admission that this project will never go from Los Angeles to San Francisco as voters intended echoes what I have been warning about for years. The results of the audit I requested provided indisputable proof that there is no way forward. They never had the land, they never had the money, and now we know that it will never be a reality.

Jim Patterson

Governor Newsom also confirmed today that if California doesn’t finish the Bakersfield to Madera portion of the track, we will be forced to repay $3.5 billion in federal funds.

With this stunning turn of events, Central Valley rail supporters and skeptics, must band together to make sure we are left with a functional track. After tearing up prime Ag land and ripping up the heart of our cities, we must ensure that we aren’t left with the unfinished scraps of a failed project.

“The only way this bureaucracy works is by keeping the pressure on. Today’s turn of events is proof of that.

2019-02-13T16:52:57-08:00February 13th, 2019|

Gubernatorial Candidate John Cox Denounces State Water Resources Board

John Cox Joins Farmers and Agricultural Community in Calling to #StoptheWaterGrab 

News Release Edited By Patrick Cavanaugh

Gubernatorial candidate John Cox issued the following statements on the California State Water Resources Control Board’s recently proposed water plan that would divert between 350,000 and 1.7 million acre-feet of water away from Central Valley farmers annually.

The California Farm Water Coalition estimates the financial impact to Valley communities could be over $3 billion annually, with 6,500 jobs lost as a result.

Cox visited Fresno County last month to express support for the proposition 3 water bond. This announcement was ahead of visits to Fresno and Bakersfield.

“I am deeply disappointed yet sadly not surprised by the decision by the State Water Resources Control Board addressing flows on the San Joaquin river,” Cox said. “The complete failure of the Sacramento establishment to provide the necessary funding, authorization, and will to build adequate surface water storage is the single greatest reason California continues to suffer unnecessary water shortages. Even the most recent approval of funds by the California Water Commission for both the Sites and Temperance Flat reservoirs are but a fraction of the funds needed to complete these two vital water storage projects.”

“The time for action is long overdue and they need to stop the water grab,” Cox said. “As Governor, I and my appointments to all California boards and commissions—but in particular the State Water Resources Control Board and the California Water Commission—will take the steps necessary to develop sufficient water storage for California’s residential, agricultural, and business needs, while protecting our aquatic environment, the Delta, and our oceans.”

“Gavin Newsom is the very embodiment of the ‘Sacramento political class’ that ignores the plight of everyday Californians,” Cox said. “He will continue to spend countless billions of hard-earned tax dollars on proven failures like the so-called High-Speed Rail project rather than demand construction of essential water storage infrastructure to meet California’s needs—including environmental purposes, which today already use more water than all California agriculture.”

2018-08-27T16:18:00-07:00August 27th, 2018|

Lt. Governor Newsom Supports Calif. Agriculture

Calif. Lt. Governor Newsom Says Ag is at a Hinge-Moment in History

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

 

In an exclusive interview with Gavin NewsomLieutenant Governor of California, during the recent Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas, Newsom declared, “It’s interesting about California—outside of Hollywood—no two more iconic industries exist than Silicon Valley’s technology, and the agricultural industry.

“It seems self-evident to everybody here that we have a unique opportunity to collaborate,” Newsom said about the event which joined the Silicon Valley high tech industry with the state’s farming industry to create digital solutions for agriculture. “We have the unique opportunity based on proximity and based on history. It is also a cultural opportunity as it relates to relationships that have been formed over the course of generations to begin to build bridges and connect some dots.”

Newsom said he believes in bottom-up inspiration, not top-down. “I don’t think you can sell down your vision from Sacramento. It’s about regions rising together and creating conditions for just these type of collaborations,” he said.

Newsom particularly appreciated comments about innovation. “I wrote a book, [“Citizenville”] and I’m not here to promote that book,” said Newsom, “but the whole idea was about platform thinking. The concept is the federal government, state government, and even local government cannot prescribe a federal, state or local pill for every problem,” he said.

“The point is,” he continued, “if we’re going to solve the big problems of the day, we have to create an environmenta platformto engage folks like yourselves to deliver the applications, literally and figuratively, to solve big problems. It’s self-evident to anyone who lives here in California, that we’ve got some big problems.”

Citizenville, by Gavin Newsom

Citizenville, by Gavin Newsom

“We have regulatory challenges in this state, and I say this as a business person with many businesses. I have a sense of kindred connection in spirit to the entrepreneurial ways that are here today,” he commented. Owner of three wineries, several restaurants and hotels, Newsom stated, “I am in the Ag business, of sorts. My point is, we could do a lot better to make a point that [agriculture] matters and we care,” he said.

“At the same time,” he added, “Silicon Valley is center-tip of the spear—all the innovation and discovery, and the change in the way we live, work and play,” Newsom said.

“We’re here on a hinge-moment in history where we are going from something old to something new, a world of mobile, local, and social; and cloud and crowd. It’s a moment of anxiety for a lot of people, a moment of mergerthe detonation of globalization and technology coming together. Again, there’s a lot of anxiety,” he noted.

Newsom suggested this is an opportune time to try to connect dots and address challenges, not just on the regulatory side and on the economic development side in this state, but also on the self-evident issues of water scarcity in this state. “You may have different opinions about climate change, global warming or violent disruption,” said Newsom, “but, as a guy who told me the other day up in Dutch Flat, Placer County, ‘I don’t care about all you folks from San Francisco talking about climate change, but something just ain’t right.’ Which is another way of describing a connection that things have changed,” Newsom explained.

Newsom said that kind of predictive nature, in terms of how we construct a water system for a world that no longer exists, and for a population that is twice the size; self-evidently, we have to do things differently. “We’ve got to be more creative and we’ve got to be more strategic,” he noted.

“It’s a long way of saying we are grateful for the work [California farmers] are doing. The goal for us in California is to make these conversations sustainable. ‘Not just situational and not just one annual conversation, but these are dialogs that must continue every day in this state,” Newsom said.

“I’m one of those people who believes in the combination of nature and technology, bringing cross-disciplines together,” Newsom said. “Cross-pollinating, literally and figuratively, ideas and people—values. “I think we have an incredible opportunity here in California, not just to survive in the agricultural industry but to truly thrive in a growing, competitive environment.”

2021-05-12T11:05:51-07:00July 20th, 2016|
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