California sues Trump administration again — this time over water [San Francisco Chronicle]
A day after President Trump visited the Central Valley to celebrate a boost in water for California farms, state officials sued to block the additional water deliveries. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, in a lawsuit filed Thursday, maintains that new federal rules designed to increase pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta fail to protect salmon and other endangered fish in the delta estuary. The lawsuit claims the Trump administration didn’t seriously consider the science and abused its power when it weakened protections under the Endangered Species Act to increase agricultural water exports.
What did Trump sign in Bakersfield? What we know about why he came to the Valley [Fresno Bee]
Water and helping farmers was President Donald Trump’s focus during his Bakersfield visit, but the document he signed after an impassioned speech Wednesday afternoon – and the reason he came to the central San Joaquin Valley city – was less clear….What was announced later is the president had shared a new presidential memorandum, different from a piece of legislation – the act of making or enacting laws. The memorandum was made to go hand-in-hand with the unveiling of a new operations plan by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation. The Interior described that plan in a news release Thursday: It “will maximize water deliveries and optimize power generation for communities and farms in California and implement improved measures to protect endangered species and their habitats in the Central Valley.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/article240478481.html
Opinion: Trump gives politically connected farmers more water, at expense of everyone else [Los Angeles Times]
…The very idea that preserving the ecosystem elevates mere fish over farms is ignorantly narrow-minded….Trump seems to think that water deliveries can be increased for Big Agriculture without sacrifices by the other stakeholders, but he’s wrong. Water supply in California is a zero-sum game, and the sum is only going to get smaller with climate change….Water and the environment are inherently political issues, but government regulation in the past has been informed by serious science. Trump has replaced that with self-interested myth.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-20/trump-rich-farmers-water
Turlock Irrigation District could reduce water deliveries, though not drastically [Modesto Bee]
The dry winter could prompt the Turlock Irrigation District to cap water deliveries for the first time since the 2012-16 drought. The district board will hold a special meeting Friday afternoon to consider the staff proposal, which would be much less severe than the worst of the drought….The Modesto Irrigation District, which shares Don Pedro Reservoir with TID, has not yet proposed a 2020 allotment. But it is watching the skies in dismay, too.
https://www.modbee.com/news/business/agriculture/article240457466.html
Dim U.S. farm forecast extends into 2020 [Wall Street Journal]
This year is shaping up as another tough one for U.S. farmers. Despite trade deals in North America and between the U.S. and China, crop prices remain subdued. The federal government isn’t expected to step in with fresh aid as it did last year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday said it expects farm debt in 2020 to rise to a record $425 billion, up from $415 billion last year….“The farm balance sheet remains tight,” USDA chief economist Robert Johansson said.
Editorial: California’s mountain lions are already under threat. Stop killing more of them [Los Angeles Times]
…At a meeting Friday of the state Fish and Game Commission, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is expected to say that there may be a scientifically valid basis for listing mountain lions in Southern California and the Central Coast as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act, and that the commission should consider doing so….We expect wildlife officials to intervene when mountain lions, which are usually solitary and reclusive, attack a person. But mountain lions shouldn’t be killed for simply being predators of other animals. Frankly, as people and their animals move closer toward lion habitat, these conflicts are inevitable. And revenge killings are not a real solution.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-21/la-ed-mountain-lion-depredation
