OPINION: Stop Feinstein’s Water-Bill Rider

Sen. Dianne Feinstein calls her rider to a bipartisan water appropriations bill a way to improve efficiencies and capture more supply from “wasted” river flows for California cities, agriculture and the environment. Sen. Barbara Boxer, the author of the bill the rider amends, calls it a “poison pill” and vows to filibuster it to death.

A more temperate read from President Obama’s Department of the Interior: Feinstein’s drought rider would further complicate already very, very complicated federal water operations in California with no clear gains. The department, and the White House, are opposed, and rightly so.