You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Much of Sacramento’s charm flows from the American and Sacramento rivers. Those rivers also are a threat. The weak El Niño and years of drought notwithstanding, Sacramento remains the most flood-prone U.S. city this side of New Orleans. For all the levee work that has been completed – $2 billion worth since 1990 – more is needed.

On Thursday, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency Board of Directors will meet to consider calling again on property owners in the region’s flood-prone areas to vote to dig a little deeper.

Drought has been called a slow-moving natural disaster – unlike flood, fire and earthquake. Perhaps the only thing that moves slower is federal law and policy. Even so, with the California drought now in its fifth year, it must be asked: Where are the innovations in federal law that might have helped?

Politicians in Washington could have passed laws four years ago that would be yielding benefits today. These would be things like assistance with groundwater recharge, water conservation on farms, stormwater capture and wastewater recycling.

Let’s just get right to it. Appearing in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee, is an editorial titled, “GOP should drop effort to gut Endangered Species Act.” And like past editorials on this topic, the misrepresentation is as blatant as the Kern River is dry — and both are damaging for our state.

This “effort” the editorial board refers to is just the latest in numerous efforts from the House to get the Senate to act on California water. When Republicans regained the majority in the House, we passed legislation each Congress to address California’s water crisis.

Two counties and several environmental groups on Thursday sued to challenge the giant Metropolitan Water District’s pending purchase of five Delta islands and tracts along or near the route of the state’s proposed twin water tunnels estimated at $15.5 billion.

The standard way to measure the impact of drought is by its economic effect. Last year, for example, the severity California’s four-year drought was broadly characterized by an estimate that it would cost the state’s economy $2.7 billion and 21,000 jobs.

However, there are many experts who feel economic measures alone are inadequate to fully assess the impact of this complex phenomenon, which affected more than one billion people worldwide in the last decade.