Once again, House Republicans have proposed to weaken the Endangered Species Act at the expense of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a day after the Metropolitan Water District committed to spending $175 million to buy five Delta islands.

The combination is enough to give some Northern California environmentalists the willies. The seller, a partnership led by Swiss-based Zurich Insurance Group that owned the islands, long sought to make money off the islands, perhaps by turning them into reservoirs. The buyer, MWD, has designs related to its responsibility to supply water to 19 million Southern Californians.