Boxer slams water bill rider backed by Feinstein

WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, teamed up Monday to slip a legislative rider into a giant end-of-year water infrastructure bill that would override endangered species protections for native California fish for the purpose of sending water to San Joaquin Valley farmers. “This is so wrong it is shocking,” Boxer said of the provision, saying it would authorize water pumping from the state’s rivers beyond what is allowed under the biological opinions for fish protection. The rider was negotiated behind closed doors without legislative hearings or public input, and suddenly attached Monday afternoon in the House to the larger water bill. Earlier efforts had failed time and again over the opposition of Boxer, the Obama administration and nearly every Democrat in the Bay Area delegation, mainly over provisions that allow more water to be pumped from rivers to farmers during the spring. House Democratic aides countered that the courts have ruled that direct instructions from Congress, in this case on how much water can be pumped from rivers, always supersede more general clauses declaring that nothing in the legislation violate bedrock environmental law. Feinstein in a statement touted the provision’s more than half billion dollars in authorizations to “help California develop a new water infrastructure,” and said it calls only for “short-term operational improvements to help us hold more water in a way that does not negatively affect fish or the environment.” Boxer said the larger water infrastructure bill contains nearly everything for California’s water infrastructure that Feinstein claims will be in the new legislation, including money for desalination, water recycling and groundwater recharge. Boxer promised to play “hardball” by filibustering every piece of legislation, including her own, that is pending in the Senate in the current lame-duck session, scheduled to end this week. The broader water infrastructure legislation contains authorizations to fix the lead problem in the water supply in Flint, Mich., as well as similar problems in municipal water systems across the country.