Pombo's Ghost haunts the McClatchy Chain
Our questions this evening for the McClatchy Chain's Washington correspondent are:
1) Didn't the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Commerce and representatives of 15,000 Friant irrigators settle with local, state and national environmental organizations on the question of letting water flow in the San Joaquin River again on behalf of the Chinook salmon, which is listed as a threatened species under the Engandered Species Act?
2) Hadn't the spring run of Chinook on the San Joaquin River been entirely wiped out in the 1950s as the result of drying up a 60-mile stretch of the river downstream from the Friant Dam and the Friant-Kern Canal?
3) Since when did Rep. RichPac Pombo, Realtor-Tracy, give a damn about that river, those fish, the San Joaquin River settlement agreement, or the ESA?
4) At least the way the Chain's DC correspondent wrote the story when it was happening, wasn't it Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA (whose reelection this year passed almost unnoticed in the revolt of the people against fascism) who put the little Valley congressmen together and made them pass a bill to fund part of the settlement?
5) Isn't Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, now chairwoman of the Senate Enviroment and Public Works Committee?
6) Won't Feinstein's fellow San Franciscan, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, soon be the Speaker of the House?
7) Didn't the federal district court just reject the latest assault on the critical habitat designation under the ESA for 15 endangered species living in and around vernal pools, the richest fields of which lie in the congressional district of Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Pombo's Ghost-Merced?
8) Hadn't Pombo's Ghost written two unsuccessful bills to wipe out the critical habitat designation?
9) Haven't San Francisco Democrats known how to handle what are now called Blue Dogs since the days when Assembly Speaker Willie Brown put Assemblyman Gary Condit in a broom closet in the famous "Gang of Five" affair?
The doubts this story casts over the prospects of getting a bill through to partially fund the settlement has the fingerprints of the Modesto and Merced irrigation districts and Westlands Water District all over it, transmitted to the Chain's DC fabulist by Cardoza. While Democrat West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall, to be the new chairman of the House Resources Committee, is unlikely to listen to Pombo's Ghost, wouldn't he be likely to listen to three extremely well placed Democrats from the San Francisco Bay area, all with demonstrable records favoring the environment, including the state's second longest, worst polluted river?
The only Valley congressman that performed any positive role in the settlement at all was Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, whose district contains the Friant Dam, Lake Millerton and the beginning of the canal. The McClatchy Chain clobbered Randanovich for his constructive role and applauded Pombo's Merced Ghost and the irrigation districts for attempted obstruction. Meanwhile, Rep. Devin Nunes, Rightwing Raver-Visalia, failing to impeach the federal judge who heard the case, howled on in Mcclatchy pages at the top of his lungs while his constituents quietly faced reality.
Cardoza gambled away his future the day he walked out of developer Fritz Grupe's Lodi ranch, arm-and-arm with Pombo, the man he then called "Mr. Chairman," and split a reported $50,000 with him of developer cash. The next thing we knew, the Pomboza, as we called them then, had fashioned the "aggressively bipartisan" bill to destroy the Endangered Species Act. The special interests then cleverly gave Cardoza a free ride to another term, hoping the Blue Dogs would still have some leverage. They won't. All Cardoza is now is Pombo's Ghost.
The feds are even looking at Merced County's Voting Rights Act violations now. We welcome any and all investigations into activities in the Merced County Administration Building, where Pombo's Ghost has his district office. Cardoza is all that's left of the powerful machine that railroaded through the UC Merced boondoggle and erected a splendid stonewall around Mad Cow Disease.
That machine -- "Honest Graft" is a good working title for it -- corrupted every environmental law and regulation and agency it could lay its sticky fingers on for the special interests of developer. Not content with environmental law, it corrupted every public process it could at the local, state Legislature and Congress level for the benefit of the same few special interests. This Honest Graft Machine brought us the worst air quality of any major farming area in America, a river -- the San Joaquin -- that has become an agricultural waste channel for almost 100 miles, reckless urban sprawl, mounting urban debt, and gigantic losses of some of the most productive agricultural land in the world. And the Honest Graft Machine did everything it could to obstruct the San Joaquin River settlement negotiations and attacked the agreement through the McClatchy Chain the moment it was signed.
So, to repeat, what makes the McClatchy Chain figure Pombo -- heir of Pombo Real Estate Farms in Tracy and, until two days ago, chieftain of the Honest Graft Machine -- would do or would have done anything to help the San Joaquin River settlement? This is an absurd news story.
Badlands editorial staff
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Fresno Bee -- Nov. 9, 2006
Environmentalists happy to be back in the national conversation...Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/v-printerfriendly/story/12150.html
The "Western rebellion" that propelled California Republican Rep. Richard Pombo to power now has receded, leaving many of its most important goals unmet and possibly beyond reach. Democrats will run the House Resources Committee, which Pombo has led for the past four years. That will mean new priorities for parks, public lands and Western water. It could mean less attention to a proposed San Joaquin River restoration in California's Central Valley. The Western rebellion, also known as the Sagebrush rebellion, involves people in the West who think the federal government oversteps itself on property rights issues, especially regarding enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. They also chafe over the fact that half the West is owned by the federal government instead of private interests. The probable new chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. She's one of the Senate's most liberal members; the current chairman, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, is among the most conservative. The changing cast of characters will play out in many ways: The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil-and-gas drilling perennially championed by House Republicans won't go anywhere in the next Congress. Drilling off the coast of Florida or other states becomes a real long shot. The Endangered Species Act, which Pombo built his career on combating, has a new lease on life. The Democrat who's poised to become House Resources Committee chairman, Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, voted against Pombo's Endangered Species Act legislation. As a lame duck, Pombo will have much less clout in moving the legislation that's needed to implement a multihundred-million-dollar San Joaquin River restoration plan. The legislation, yet to be introduced by Mariposa Republican Rep. George Radanovich, is needed to finish settling a long-running lawsuit that would return salmon to the river. Backers of the San Joaquin River plan had hopes of getting the bill introduced and passed during the upcoming lame-duck session; that now seems remote.