Legislature Passes Emergency Drought Bill

Last week the Legislature passed an emergency drought package that would expedite $1.1 billion in funding for water and flood control projects.  The package included $237 million for water reclamation and desalination projects, allocated $44 million to communities hard hit by the drought for food relief and other social programs, $67 million for emergency water projects and over $660 million of Prop 1E funding for flood control projects. 

The package passed with strong bipartisan support in both houses.  However, there was some objection to language that was included that gave the Department of Fish and Wildlife broad civil penalty authority including fines up to $10,000 per day.  A few Republicans voted no and several Republicans and Democrats did not vote, citing as their reason the inclusion of this language which seemed unrelated to the drought funding. 

Poll Shows Drought Major Concern for Californians

A recent poll from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California suggests a growing sense of gloom and frustration across the state about the historic drought that's now in its fourth straight year. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed say they think California in the year 2025 will have an "inadequate" supply of water. That's a 17-point increase in the long-term water pessimism since PPIC asked the question in September 2013.

The biggest water worriers - those who said "very inadequate" - are residents of the Central Valley (59 percent), Republicans (58 percent) and white Californians (56 percent). (In the Inland Empire region, 23 percent of those surveyed say water isn't much of a problem. In the Central Valley, only 9 percent agree with that sentiment.)

On this question, it's interesting to note how the two issues - the economy and water - differ by region. The drought outpaces jobs and the economy as a concern among Central Valley residents by 15 percentage points, and among Bay Area residents by 17 percentage points. But travel southward and you find the opposite: Los Angeles residents still think the economy (29 percent) is a bigger worry than the drought (13 percent); and in the Inland Empire, the economy (35 percent) outpaces the drought (15 percent) as the leading problem by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R, KS) and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D, NC) - along with a bipartisan group of 16 cosponsors - reintroduced last week a bill to give FDA the ultimate legal authority on food labeling, preempting state labeling laws and preventing state ballot initiatives over labeling of foods produced using biotechnology.  The bill was immediately praised by the Coalition for Safe Affordable Food (CFSAF), a coalition of 40 groups representing production agriculture, processors, input industries and the food processing and retailing industries.  The bill was immediately opposed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and its allies. 

The bill has two primary goals:  First, to preempt states and localities from creating conflicting and confusing GM labeling laws.  The second is to create a voluntary USDA-certification for non-GM claims in food, similar to the program it currently runs for organics.  While voluntary, observers say the special USDA certification that could be used on the food product label is a great incentive for companies to participate.  At the same time, the bill increases FDA review of GM food ingredients, while mandating closer cooperation between USDA and FDA on the safety of new ingredients to be used in food and feed.  The bill would also require FDA to define the term "natural" when used on food labels.

The bill's introduction was announced by Pompeo immediately following a House Agriculture Committee hearing last week on the impact of labeling schemes for foods that contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients where all witnesses and most committee members present, not only evinced strong support for the safety of GMA ingredients, but also called for a federal solution to the issue of food labeling.  CFSAF said the hearing "demonstrates the clear appetite among members of both parties to advance national legislation that will ensure...food labels are based on sound science and uniform standards."

American Feed Industry Assn. (AFIA) President Joel Newman said, "We're pleased with the decision to re-introduce the Safe & Accurate Food Labeling Act, just as we supported the bill in the last Congress. We strongly feel there should be a federal food labeling solution, one that consumers can rely upon, but which recognizes the safety of ingredients produced by modern agricultural biotechnology.  AFIA supports Reps. Pompeo and Butterfield for standing up for what is right by working to ensure FDA remains the authoritative power regarding food safety and labeling standards.  AFIA will continue to work with Congress to make sure the specific needs of the animal food industry are addressed in the bill when it is enacted."

Pompeo, a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee which oversees FDA, hopes to move the bill this year, but there's not a Senate counterpart to Pompeo's bill yet.  CFSAF is meeting with a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle, and while there's interest - and the Senate Agriculture Committee is interested in acting on the issue - no primary Senate author has come forward publicly. 

The consensus of nearly all witnesses at last week's Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on EPA's controversial "clean water rule," better known as "waters of the U.S. (WOTUS)," is that the proposed rule is broken and needs fixing. Panel ranking member Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) says she's got faith in EPA the final rule expected this spring will address concerns, while committee Chair Pat Roberts (R, KS) says he's heard nothing from EPA that should allay farm and ranch concerns.

In a related development, last week's marathon voting on the Senate's FY2016 budget resolution is expected to see Sen. John Barrasso (R, WY) offer an amendment to "limit" the EPA rulemaking, a move less to rein in EPA - the budget resolution has no force of law - and more to get his colleagues on record about the wisdom of the agency rulemaking. 

"I believe the appropriate changes will be made to ensure our agricultural producers get the certainty they need and deserve.  This is critically important so that (producers) can continue operating with confidence their farm activities will not be regulated under the Clean Water Act (CWA)," Stabenow said, explaining she's had several conversations with EPA over the last several months. 

"EPA has provided no assurances based on concrete evidence to alleviate any concerns from agriculture or rural America about this rule," Roberts countered, saying he finds it troubling EPA ignores the multiple calls from ag, industry and congress for the agency to withdraw the rule.  He also said he's not impressed with EPA's renaming the rule, adding it makes more sense to "change the rule" instead.

The big focus of hearing witnesses is the vagueness of the rule, particularly several of the definitions, including the meaning of "tributary," "significant nexus" to navigable waters, and "adjacent, used by EPA in justifying expanding its authority under the CWA.   Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge called the rule "impermissibly vague," and does not provide, as EPA says, clarity on agency authority, but instead "causes confusion." 

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy last week told the National Farmers Union's (NFU) annual meeting she regrets the poor manner in which her agency "rolled out" the rulemaking, and said when the final rule is published this spring it will include a narrower definition of tributaries; erosion language will be fixed, and the "only ditches we're interested in are the ones that are natural or constructed streams...the ones that could carry pollution downstream...the ones which have the amount, duration and frequency of flow to look, act and function like a tributary."  The agency has subsequently said waters outside the classic CWA definitions of "navigable waters," with uncertain connections to downstream waters, would be evaluated on an individual basis.

Donald van der Vaart, secretary of North Carolina's Environment & Natural Resources Department, said farmers and ranchers will feel the pressure created by EPA's "definitional latitude" because it could subject private land to more regulation.  He said poorly drained lands which situationally hold water are at risk of being defined as wetlands, falling prey to "adjacency" to navigable waters depending on how a particular regulator might define the situation. 

Josh Baldi, regional director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, which already administers a similar state law, said while he likes the EPA rulemaking, he is looking for improvements and said EPA should set up regional committees to address state concerns.