Rep. Nunes Turns On California Spigot

Is sanity finally coming to California's Central Valley? America's breadbasket has long been victim of capricious water cutoffs to "save" the environment. A bill in Congress puts an end to this man-made drought. It should pass. Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia, Calif., has come forward with a legislative remedy for the policies that have turned fertile fields into hollowed-out dust bowls in the name of "being green." Nunes' Sacramento-San Joaquin Water Reliability Act goes to a vote in the House Wednesday and if it passes, it will guarantee that water the farmers paid for finally gets to the parched Central Valley. It will put an end to the sorry stream of shriveled vineyards, blackened almond groves and unemployed farm workers standing in alms lines for bagged carrots from China. The insanity of the current policies against some of America's most productive farmers in one of the world's richest farm belts is largely the work leftist politicians from the wealthy enclaves of the San Francisco Bay Area. This group has exerted its political muscle on the less politically powerful region that produces more than half the fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. — with $26 billion in annual sales. "The bill restores the flow of water and establishes a framework for meaningful environmental improvements. It is a repudiation of the left's assault on rural communities, which began with the decimation of the West's timber industry and now is focused on Central Valley agriculture," Nunes told IBD. The stand-alone bill, H.R. 1837, marks the first time Central Valley water shortages and the federal role in creating them will be considered directly in Congress...more