CALIFORNIA TO SEIZE FARMS FOR JERRY BROWN’S WATER TUNNELS

The State of California is planning to use eminent domain law to acquire hundreds of farms in the Delta for a controversial, multi-billion-dollar underground water tunnel project proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

According to documents obtained by environmental group Restore the Delta, state water exporters and the Delta Design Construction Enterprise (DCE) division of the Department of Water Resources are planning to acquire 300 pieces of land from Delta farms to ensure right of way for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan tunnel project.

The $15 billion project, under development for the last eight years, has long been favored by Brown, who wants to use the twin underground tunnels to move water from the northern part of the state to the south by diverting it around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

But the project has faced stiff opposition from environmental groups like Restore the Delta and others who say the tunnels are not environmentally sustainable.

In a statement, Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parilla blasted the “arrogance” of state officials for using eminent domain to acquire farmers’ land.

“While Delta and good-government activists are busy mobilizing comments in a democratic process, we discover state agencies view public oversight as simply a distraction,” Barrigan-Parilla said. “These documents arrogantly envision groundbreaking ceremonies as early as July 2016. Bulldozers and cement trucks are ready to roll! Red ribbons are budgeted! All for a $60 billion boondoggle without even one permit. Clearly, water officials under the Brown Administration view the Delta as a colony.”

Brown has tussled with environmental groups over the tunnels before. In May, the governor told critics of the proposal to “shut up, because you don’t know what they hell you’re talking about.” Brown said that “millions of hours” had gone into poring over every aspect of the tunnels, and has called the project an “imperative” that “must move forward.”

Yet despite the governor’s enthusiasm, the tunnel project has not yet been approved.

Water exporters and some agricultural interest groups support the tunnels. Californians for Water Security, a group made up of the California Chamber of Commerce and various farm and labor groups, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television and radio advertisements in support of the project.

But California’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire the land has created an increasingly rare moment of unity between environmental groups and Delta farmers.

“It is wrong and premature that the Department of Water Resources has a unit creating a secret land acquisition plan to take 150-year-old farms, like ours, through condemnation,” Courtland farmer Richard Elliott said in a statement, noting that his family has never sold any of its land. “The entire plan doesn’t make for sustainable food policies, smart land use practices, or even common sense.”

According to the documents, the state would make Delta farmers one offer to purchase their land, after which the farmers would have 30 days to accept or reject a deal. But after those 30 days, the state could still plan to force the owners to sell using eminent domain law.

The plan also calls outright for minimal “external” oversight.

“All transactions are conducted, reviewed and approved internally by DCE staff and managers to maintain control and avoid unnecessary delays to schedule,” the documents state. “DCE shall seek to minimize external review and approval requirements.”

Tony Francois, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who specializes in water and property rights, tells Breitbart News that the use of eminent domain does not allow for a proper system of “checks and balances,” even for controversial state infrastructure projects.

“The fact that they don’t have the project approved has generally not been a bar to acquiring the property,” Francois said. “If the project is controversial, they don’t need any special approvals to acquire the property, and that starts making the project look more inevitable. [State contractors could say] ‘Hey, we’ve already spent the money acquiring the property, we better get started building it.”

Francois added that the use of eminent domain exempts the state from being subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) environmental impact reviews, which havecaused stalling on some infrastructure projects for years, or even decades.

“If these reports are correct, then we have further confirmation that the tunnels project has been a foregone conclusion,” state Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) told the Associated Presson Monday. Wolk said the environmental impact review, “which should be used to choose a project, is simply being used to justify a favored project.”

Francois says the state is on solid ground for claims of eminent domain to acquire the property, as long as it can prove the water tunnel project constitutes a “public good.” Less clear, he says, is the issue of “just compensation” for the land the farmers will be giving up.

“Are they only taking the property they need for the underground tunnels, or are they taking the surface estate as well?” Francois said. “It’s the cutting [the land] up that creates a significant problem that farmers think they are not getting properly compensated for.”

According to the AP, the tunnel project is officially in a public comment phase until October.

Via: Breitbart

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EPA declares no ‘widespread’ harm to drinking water from fracking, boosting industry

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• FRACKING SUPPORTERS receive a boost by a new EPA report finding the controversial oil-and-gas extraction process has not caused "widespread" harm to drinking water in the United States.

Fracking supporters were boosted Thursday by a new Environmental Protection Agency report finding the controversial oil-and-gas extraction process has not caused "widespread" harm to drinking water.

The findings were contained in a draft assessment, as part of a report requested by Congress.

The report said the agency "did not find evidence" that any process has "led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States."

The agency did say the controversial drilling technique could affect drinking water if safeguards aren't maintained. It found specific instances where poorly constructed drilling wells and improper wastewater management affected drinking water resources.

But the EPA also reported the number of cases was small compared with the large number of wells that use hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.

For industry and congressional voices who have long argued the health hazards associated with fracking are overblown, the report appeared to be a boon.

"Today's study confirms what we already know. Hydraulic fracturing, when done to industry standards, does not impact drinking water," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement. "States have been effectively regulating hydraulic fracturing for more than 40 years and this study is evidence of that."

Via: Fox News

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OBAMA: CLIMATE CHANGE LIKELY MAKING CALIFORNIA DROUGHT WORSE

During an interview with a local California news network, President Obama said climate change was probably making the state’s devastating drought worse.

“Neither a governor nor even a president can control weather,” he explained, but pointed out that his administration was putting more emphasis on “man made contributors” to climate change.

“We’re going to have to work hard to make sure that we’re serious about the climate change issue,” he said, acknowledging that although there was no evidence showing that the drought was “caused” by climate change, it certainly didn’t make it any better.

“What we do know is, if the temperature goes up a percent or two percent or three percent, more water evaporates, it changes weather patterns, and it’s not good for California, it’s not good for the West,” he said.

Obama praised farmers for voluntarily using less water and suggested that more of them shift to drip irrigation, to save more water, calling it an example of “where we need to go.”

Via: Breitbart

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EPA Grants Itself Power To Regulate Ponds, Ditches, Puddles

 The EPA has released its Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule critics say would allow the agency to regulate waterways previously not under federal jurisdiction, including puddles, ditches and isolated wetlands.

Republicans, farmers and industrial groups have called the rule an EPA “power grab” because it extends the agency’s powers to new heights. Environmentalists and the Obama administration, however, argue the WOTUS rule is necessary for protecting water quality.

No matter how you spin it, the EPA’s WOTUS rule does expand the agency’s authority, and creates new avenues for environmental groups to sue projects they want to stop from moving forward.

“The administration’s decree to unilaterally expand federal authority is a raw and tyrannical power grab that will crush jobs,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement.

“Despite their assurances, it appears that EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have failed to keep their promises to Congress and the American people,” echoed Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe. “In fact, instead of fixing the overreach in the proposed rule, remarkably, EPA has made it even broader.”

Farmers and industry groups worry the new WOTUS rule will expand EPA reach over isolated wetlands, ponds and ditches that have a “significant nexus” to navigable waters — a vague standard employed by the EPA to regulate bodies of water.

This could add another layer of permitting for industries and homeowners as well as more uncertainty caused by the expanded federal role in regulating bodies of water.

Via: The Daily Caller

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EPA preparing to unleash a deluge of new regulations

Happy holidays from the Obama administration. Federal agencies are currently working on rolling out hundreds of environmental regulations, including major regulations that would limit emissions from power plants and expand the agency’s authority to bodies of water on private property.

On Tuesday, the White House released its regulatory agenda for the fall of 2013. It lists hundreds of pending energy and environmental regulations being crafting by executive branch agencies, including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone.

The EPA is currently crafting 134 major and minor regulations, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda. Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending regulations originate from the agency’s air and radiation office, including carbon-dioxide-emission limits on power plants.

Carbon-dioxide limits are a key part of President Barack Obama’s climate agenda. The EPA is set to set emissions limits that would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they use carbon capture and sequestration technology. Next year, the agency will move to limit emissions from existing power plants — which could put more older coal plants out of commission.

“The proposed standards, if finalized, will establish achievable limits of carbon pollution per megawatt hour for all future units, moving the nation towards a cleaner and more efficient energy future,” the agency said in its agenda. “In 2014, EPA intends to propose standards of performance for greenhouse gas emissions from existing and modified power plant sources.”

Hundreds of coal plants that have been closed or slated for early retirement due to Environmental Protection Agency regulations, according to coal industry estimates.

“Already, EPA regulations have contributed to the closure of more than 300 coal units in 33 states,” said Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

However, the agency isn’t just working on limiting emissions from coal plants. The EPA is also working on a rule that would expand the definition of “waters of the U.S.” under the Clean Water Act to include water on private property.

Via: Daily Caller

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The Irony of Michelle Obama’s Water Campaign

Michelle Obama wants you to drink more water, at least one more glass a day. Frankly, I think it’s great. Sure, the science behind some of her claims is somewhere between iffy and debatable. If you’re not dehydrated, drinking more water won’t give you more energy or cure your headaches, as her office vaguely claims. But it might take up belly space that otherwise would have gone to grape soda, Red Bull, or some other sugary concoction.

Team Michelle won’t admit this is the real agenda, insisting this is just a healthy, helpful reminder from the first lady. “Water is so basic,” she explained from Watertown, Wis., “and because it is so plentiful, sometimes we just forget about it amid all the ads we watch on television and all the messages we receive every day about what to eat and drink. The truth is, water just gets drowned out.”

Except that’s not really true. According to Beverage Tracker (you don’t subscribe?), in 1998, soda was our No. 1 drink of choice, with Americans consuming 54 gallons of the stuff every year. Today, it’s down to 44 gallons, while water consumption has hit 58 gallons and rising.

Via: National Review Online

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First Lady Michelle Obama wants people to drink more plain water

Michelle Obama has pushed Americans to eat healthier and to exercise more. Now she says we should "drink up" too. As in plain water. And as in more of it.

The first lady, an exercise fanatic who loves French fries and whose biceps are envied by women everywhere, is getting behind a campaign being launched Thursday to encourage people to drink more plain old-fashioned water. Whether it comes from a faucet, an underground spring, a rambling river or a plastic bottle, the message is: "Drink up."

She was joining the Partnership for a Healthier America as the nonpartisan, nonprofit group launches the nationwide effort from Watertown, Wis., with backing from a variety of likely and unlikely sources, including the beverage industry, entertainers, media and government. Mrs. Obama is the organization's honorary chairman.

Every bodily system depends on water, which makes up about 60 percent of a person's body weight, according to the Mayo Clinic. Water is a calorie-free option for people concerned about weight control, and is largely inexpensive and available practically everywhere.

Via: Fox News

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MICHELLE OBAMA TO TOUT WATER IN SODA TOWN

MADISON — Wash this political trip down with a little irony.

When first lady Michelle Obama pays a call on Watertown on Thursday afternoon to urge Americans to choose water over soda, she’ll be making her latest health pitch in a southern Wisconsin community that earns its living, at least in part, on the sweat of soda bottlers.

The corporate office of Wis-Pak Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of Pepsi-Cola and other leading soft drinks, is located in Watertown. Wis-Pak, with production facilities and warehouses throughout the central U.S.,  is the community’s 10th largest employer, according to the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Watertown also is home to the 7-Up Bottling Co., a family-owned business that for 75 years has provided full-service beverage distribution and supplied equipment to businesses in Dodge, Jefferson, Waukesha and Rock counties.

Susan Dascenzo, executive director of the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce, could not provide employment figures of the two soda distributors.

Officials from the companies did not return phone calls Monday afternoon from Wisconsin Reporter. But a local Republican brought up the interesting political-business juxtaposition not long after the first lady’s office announced plans to unveil her new health effort at the Watertown High School.

Via: Human Events

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