Bill that would’ve expedited the Delta tunnel is pulled in committee
From the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN):
Advocates for water equity were heartened today when AB 2215, a stalking horse bill that would’ve fast-tracked the $60–$100 Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), was pulled from the California Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water. As a result, the proposed legislation is dead.
Max Gomberg, the Senior Policy Analyst for the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN), observed AB 2215 would’ve extended State Water Project water rights without due process. That would have cleared the way for rapid approval and construction of the DCP, an unnecessary, environmentally destructive and extremely expensive project that would’ve benefitted a handful of Central Valley corporate growers and Southern California developers while penalizing ratepayers, who would’ve borne most of the costs.
“The Senate’s Natural Resources and Water committee did its due diligence and then it did the right thing,” said Gomberg. “We’re gratified that an analysis of AB 2215 by our attorney, Roger Moore, was cited extensively in the committee’s review, contributing to the ultimate defeat of this deeply flawed legislative coup against the public interest.”
Carolee Krieger, C-WIN’s Executive Director, said the defeat of AB 2215 reinforced long-standing public opposition to any effort to divert more water from the beleaguered Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the largest estuary in the western continental United States.
“The DCP is the latest vampire resurrection of the Peripheral Canal, the failed attempt by Governor Jerry Brown to build an enormous diversion project that would’ve drained the Delta,” said Krieger. “Governor Newsom’s DCP has been gussied up with a few bells and whistles, but it’s still the same concept—and California citizens still oppose it fiercely. That message was heard loud and clear in Sacramento today.”
