Following nearly two years of litigation regarding Trump-era water policy, the federal government has until Oct. 14 to come up a plan to balance competing needs for the precious resource.
A minute order from District Judge Dale A. Drozd from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California extended by two weeks the due date for the status update that was originally expected to be delivered Sept. 30.
Congressional leaders are calling on President Joe Biden to declare a drought disaster in the West as record temperatures and historic wildfires batter multiple states.
In letter, Reps. Joe Neguse of Colorado and Jared Huffman of California, Democrats whose districts have been ravaged by drought and wildfires, ask Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to release additional resources to aid Western communities faced with water cuts as supplies rapidly dwindle.
As climate-driven drought and wildfires rage in California, the Biden administration is struggling to navigate the hard politics that come with deciding who gets access to the state’s precious — and dwindling — water supplies.
Responding to the hot and parched conditions that have contributed to the wildfires and worsened the water shortages this summer has strained both federal and state capacity. Now the Biden administration is delaying action on the fundamental question at the heart of California’s long-running water wars: How much water should be reserved for species protections, at the expense of the state’s powerful agricultural industry?
President Joe Biden’s latest leap into the Senate’s up-and-down efforts to clinch a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure deal comes with even more at stake than his coveted plans for boosting road, rail and other public works projects.
The outcome of the infrastructure deal, which for weeks has encountered one snag after another, will affect what could be the crown jewel of his legacy. That would be his hopes for a subsequent $3.5 trillion federal infusion for families’ education and health care costs, a Medicare expansion and efforts to curb climate change.
As someone working on water issues in the West for more decades than I care to admit, I have found myself repeating the same mantra over and over again: When you’re in a drought, it’s too late to prepare.
Well, we’re in drought, again, and I can’t help feeling a sense of personal failure for how ill prepared we are. This time is worse, however — worse because surely, we should have learned by now to prepare better and worse because record-breaking heat and early wildfires indicate the climate change ratchet has clearly clicked several notches tighter.
The Biden administration will defend controversial water delivery contracts to California farmers issued in the Trump era, according to a court filing yesterday, rejecting pleas from a tribe and environmentalists to rescind them.
Rarely has a routine water resources bill generated so much political buzz, but as senators hoisted the measure to passage Thursday the bipartisan infrastructure legislation served as a potential template for building consensus around President Joe Biden’s ambitious American Jobs Plan.
The Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 authorizes about $35 billion over five years to improve leaky pipes and upgrade facilities, and is widely supported by lawmakers and their states back home.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
