CA Gov. Gavin Newsom Sues Trump For Efforts To Give Farmers Water

Breitbart has more details on why Newsom is suing Trump over wanting to give water to California farmers:

California Governor Gavin Newsom is suing the Trump administration for trying to get water to suffering farmers in the state’s Central Valley.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Trump is trying to “prevent California’s rivers and wildlife from being cheated out of vital supplies.”

State leaders said boosting agricultural deliveries, a longtime campaign promise of the president, could upend fragile watersheds and threaten such protected fish as the ionic chinook salmon and delta smelt.

The Chronicle characterizes farmers as “big water users allied with Washington.”

Newsom said in a statement:

We are once again marshaling our collective resources and building on our record of strong, science-based environmental policies, to chart a new path forward for water policy in California. As stewards of this state’s remarkable natural resources, we must do everything in our power to protect them.

“The next generation of Californians deserve nothing less,” Newsom said.

The Chronicle reports that 30 percent of the state’s water supply to cities and farms comes from federal and state-run water reservoirs.

The Trump administration last month announced new rules for both water sources to lessen restrictions on giving farms access to the water supplies.

The Sacramento Bee also had the following to say:

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said Thursday it will sue the Trump administration over its efforts to push more water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, saying the federal plan would harm the sprawling estuary and the fragile fish populations that live there.

                                                                                                

In a 610-page environmental report, Newsom’s administration sketched out its own plan for managing water flows through the Delta, while issuing a separate statement that blasted the Trump plan, which is designed to increase water supplies for San Joaquin Valley farmers, the president’s political allies.

                                                                                                

“As stewards of this state’s remarkable natural resources, we must do everything in our power to protect them,” Newsom said in a prepared statement.

                                                                                                

Federal officials defended by their plan, saying the final version of the federal environmental documents incorporated input from state officials.

                                            

                                

                                                                                                

 “Today’s announcement by Governor Newsom is disappointing in his preference to have judges dictate these important projects instead of the career professionals at the federal and state levels who have developed a plan based on the best science and significant input from the public,” Brenda Burman, Trump’s top appointee at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said in a prepared statement. “If that’s their choice, we’ll see them in court.”

                                                                                    

                                                                                    

                                                                                

Reclamation is the agency that runs California’s federal dams, canals and pumping stations.

                                                                                                

Environmental groups welcomed Newsom’s pushback on Trump’s water plan, which has widespread support from powerful farm and urban water agencies that pump water from the Delta. But environmentalists argued that the state’s alternative proposal for operating the Delta doesn’t go nearly far enough to stave off extinction for fish and other species.

                                                                                                

“They’re not even as protective as what’s in place today,” said Doug Obegi, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

                                                                                                

California Republican leaders called Newsom’s threatened lawsuit a “a direct attack on California’s hardworking farmers, farmworkers, and agribusinesses.

                                                                                                

“California Democrats should be defending those who put food on America’s table, instead of continually assaulting their industry,” state Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove of Bakersfield said in a prepared statement.