5-9-09

 
5-9-09
Merced Sun-Star
Valley's cries of pain fall on deaf ears
It's difficult to get attention for our plight in distant Washington...MICHAEL DOYLE, Sun-Star Washington Bureau
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/268/v-print/story/836361.html
WASHINGTON -- The San Joaquin Valley is seriously hurting but that sometimes doesn't register on Capitol Hill, where distracted lawmakers are busy bouncing from one crisis to another.
Outside of the Valley's congressional delegation, the region's drought, fallowed fields and emptied homes attract only sporadic attention. Amid exceptionally grim circumstances, the world's most productive farm country can still consider itself Uncle Sam's neglected stepchild.
"Yes, the Valley has been underfunded," acknowledged Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, adding that "every member of Congress has a difficult time trying to get attention for their district." It's not for want of trying.
Cardoza says he constantly pesters House leaders and Obama administration officials. His Republican colleague, Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia, maneuvered the House last month into supporting a study of the employment consequences of water shortages. Republican Rep. George Radanovich of Mariposa and Democratic Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno likewise make waves in their own way.
Soon, moreover, the Valley lawmakers will welcome to Washington activists who organized a four-day march to San Luis Reservoir in April. Participants in the still-unscheduled D.C. trip will spotlight the 10 percent cut in irrigation deliveries south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the 40 percent unemployment rate in towns like Mendota.
"We're trying to bring a human aspect to this thing," said Mario Santoyo, a Reedley resident and president of the California Latino Water Coalition. "We haven't had a voice before; this is part of trying to create a voice." Within California's echo chamber, this message resonates. The coalition's cross-Valley water march drew thousands of participants and the praise of high-level politicians including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It sparked dozens of newspaper stories and television accounts.
But distance mutes the Valley's voice. The agenda-setting New York Times published a single, brief story about the water march on page A17. The Washington Post ignored it altogether. Like the proverbial tree falling in a far-away forest, the unheard march left no mark on most members of Congress.
The Valley's lawmakers amplify the local message.
Nonetheless, the five congressmen representing the area between Stockton and Bakersfield are a distinct minority among the California's House delegation.
"We're five members out of 53," Nunes said. "Five members in a big state makes it rough."
Other reasons shield Valley pain from national view. The regional farm problems haven't demonstrably affected consumer food prices nationwide; the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service anticipates only "low to moderate food price inflation" this year.
Nor are food shortages pinching consumers; and, in today's global marketplace, domestic and foreign competition can usually step in to fill one region's shortcomings.
The Valley's unemployment rate is high now, but it may not shock the national conscience because it's always been above the national average. Omnipresent bad news also muffles the Valley's groaning.
The national unemployment rate of 8.9 percent is double that of January 2001. From the Valley's political perspective, this is distracting.
Stockton, Bakersfield and Sacramento ranked in the nation's Top 10 for foreclosures last year.
Cardoza likens this to an economic Hurricane Katrina, a metaphor suggesting the need for a commensurate federal response. Unlike the 2005 storm, though, the home mortgage catastrophe has swept over more than one discrete region.
In hopes of riveting more local attention, Cardoza on Thursday won approval for a House amendment that will track home foreclosures nationwide.
"Foreclosure and default rates are critical statistics for not only monitoring the nation's economy, but also for determining which areas of the country have been hardest hit," Cardoza said, stressing the need to aid "areas that need help the most." This year's irrigation delivery reductions seriously hurt farmers. But because the Valley farmers rarely receive their full allotment -- last year's allocation was 45 percent -- the reduction this year may not seem so dramatic outside the region.
Skeptics, moreover, don't buy the farmers' insistence that overly strict environmental laws are to blame for the region's woes. In this light, Valley complaints are typecast as merely the latest round in a long-running effort to crimp the Endangered Species Act and steer more subsidized water toward farms and away from environmental protection.
"It's not as easy as (Nunes) suggested," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. "This is a statewide water system that serves many interests." Add it up, and the Valley has a hard time making its case.
"We're doing everything we can to raise awareness," Nunes said.
This political attention matters. Its sustained presence can bring money and reform. Its absence can shortchange a legitimately needy area.
Exhibit A: Appalachia.
During the Johnson administration's War on Poverty in the mid-1960s, Congress established the Appalachian Regional Commission to focus state and federal resources. By 2002, per-capita federal spending in the 68-county Central Appalachia region was $2,786 higher than per-capita federal funding in the San Joaquin Valley, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The nonpartisan analysts noted the Valley is "one of the most economically depressed regions of the United States" and that the Valley counties from Sacramento to Kern "received fewer federal funds than the national per-capita average or for California." Valley lawmakers vowed to use the 2005 congressional study as a rallying point for united action. It was a familiar initiative. In late 2000, then-Rep. Cal Dooley, D-Visalia, summoned the Clinton administration to establish an interagency task force targeting San Joaquin Valley assistance.
The Clinton-era task force was a precursor to the current state-level California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, which remains a work in progress.
"The wheels of government turn slowly," Cardoza said.
Our View: Water-saving bills worth supporting
State leaders must promote innovative ways to offset new water demand.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/836336.html
California is no stranger to drought, though collective memory tends to recede in wet years. During the droughts of 1976-1977 and 1987-1992, Californians supported conservation measures.
And those helped lower the burden on water supplies that comes with new housing developments.
California is now in the third year of a drought, and the governor declared a statewide water emergency in February. It's time, once again, to push for improvements in conservation in new housing developments.
Without such measures, it will be increasingly difficult to meet water needs for a growing population. Many communities already are curtailing projects because they cannot find long-term supplies.
Two bills are working their way through the Legislature -- one sponsored by the California Building Industry Association (Assembly Bill 300 by Assemblywoman Anna Caballero) and another sponsored by the East Bay Municipal Utility District and the California Planning and Conservation League (AB 1408 by Assemblyman Paul Kerkorian).
Both have elements that would encourage innovative approaches to reduce water consumption in new housing developments. They call for builders to use voluntary water-saving measures (irrigation control, efficient appliances, leak detection kits, automated metering, rainwater harvesting, water recycling) or pay into a conservation fund.
In return, developers would get credit for these savings by proving that their projects have a reliable supply.
AB 1408 is stronger in ensuring that the measures continue when the property is sold. Water suppliers must be able to count on water savings long-term. Modeled on a 700-home development in Contra Costa County, the bill also aims to have total water used after new development be equal to or less than total water used before the project.
California needs a comprehensive water solution. Meanwhile state leaders must promote innovative ways to offset new water demand, and the concepts in these bills are a good start.
Letter: Kiss on the Lips...JANICE HOAGLAND, Merced
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/836344.html
Editor: The Loose Lips column in Friday's Sun-Star was right on.
Change? Ka-ching! The total cost of first lady Michelle Obama's 20- to 30-minute speech at the UC Merced commencement will be closer to three quarters of a million dollars. Let's include the "beautification" project at Castle Airport. Then there is the cargo plane bringing her special limousine.
Oh, and there's the 757 jet that is traveling across the country with her and her entourage. How about the security forces that will include our local police, sheriff, UC police, CHP, FBI and Secret Service?
I thought we were having an economic crisis locally, statewide, nationally and in the UC system.
Silly me.
Letter: Consider all facts...KEITH LAW, Merced
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/836319.html
Editor: Two facts we must deal with concerning the Wal-Mart distribution center are our need for jobs and our need to protect our health.
The main problem that I see is that those opposing the center acknowledge our need for jobs and offer alternatives in that regard, while those supporting the center are dismissive about the severe health risks that it will certainly produce.
There are benefits to the center and there are costs; please, let's be honest about both.
If you support the center realize these facts: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rated Merced's air as the worst in the nation among small cities regarding pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter, that ozone and particulate matter are the main contributors to lung disease, and that highway truck traffic is among the largest contributors to these pollutants.
Therefore, as a matter of fact, if you support the center you also support a lot more air pollution that all of us, especially our children, will be breathing; thus, there will be much higher rates of lung disease and premature deaths due to your decision.
In nearly every argument for the center the authors state at some point that even if it was placed away from our city there would still be the same amount of trucks, and so the same pollution.
This reasoning suggests an inability to arrive at the obvious fact that if the center is placed to the south of Merced, as one possibility, then all southbound traffic, to Fresno and Bakersfield for example, would not pass through Merced.
One other fact is that none of the trucks would be getting on and off the freeway and standing idle here, which is where much of the pollution is produced.
Please, for the sake of our health, let's seriously consider all of the facts.

Editor Tharp interviews UCM Chancellor Kang...No description available. By: Scott Jason

http://videos.mercedsunstar.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=4056798&item_index=1&all=1&sort=NULL
Tharp: We at the Sun-Star congratulate you and UC Merced on this crowning achievement (unintelligible). It is the end in a way but also as your new sculpture suggests it is the beginning (Kang: beginning) of a whole new chapter in the University's life and we are proud to be part of the community that supports UC Merced.
Kang: Thank you.
Tharp: Our first question is what does it mean to UC Merced to host First Lady Michelle Obama at the aah first graduating classes commencement.
Kang: It is a great honor to have First Lady Michelle Obama come (unintelligible) celebrity aah (unintelligible) achievements of our students. They are pioneers and having First Lady aah to come to Merced is a great deal not only for our students but our staff, the facility and the entire community...
Senior with political aspirations heading to Washington for internship...DANIELLE GAINES
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/836342.html
From a young age, David Do always knew what he wanted to be when he grew up: President of the United States of America.
Then, "in some government class in middle school," Do realized that he wasn't legally eligible to assume the presidency.
Do -- pronounced like "dough" -- had lived in San Jose since he was 1 and was a U.S. citizen.
But he held dual citizenship here and in Canada.
Do was born in Vancouver 21 years ago, after his parents fled there as refugees from Vietnam.
Momentarily crushed by the realization of an impossible dream, Do understood that it wasn't the end of the world. "I could always be a senator," he said, reassuring himself. "Or a member of the Cabinet."
This summer, the UC Merced senior will get one step closer to his political goals.
This spring, Do was accepted into the UCDC internship program, a University of California-sponsored semester-long academic and internship program in the nation's capital.
Do was so excited about the program that he put off his graduation from UC Merced.
"I have the credits to graduate," Do said. "I just really wanted that opportunity in D.C."
While he is there, Do will write a research paper and receive 12 units in government and political science after successfully completing the semester.
To be considered for the program, applicants must have two letters of recommendation, a 3.0 GPA, be a junior or senior, submit a writing sample and pass an interview process...
Mike Tharp: 'Transitions' -- UC Merced seniors have grown up
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/115/v-print/story/836327.html
How did you change from when you were 17 or 18 to when you were 21 or 22?
Luckily for UC Merced and our community, local photographer Roger Wyan has helped answer that question for some 100 seniors in the university's first graduating class. He photographed them freshman year, 2005-06, then made their pictures again during their final year.
The result: a vibrant exhibition of those photographs displayed in the Kolligian Library. He also got the students to describe how they themselves thought they had changed during their years on campus. The first-person quotes, as captions, accompany the portraits on the third-floor walls.
You can view them at: http://www.facebook.com  -- search for Roger J. Wyan
Together, they provide a memorable glimpse into how these young people progressed from mumbling, stumbling teenagers into confident young adults...
Fresno Bee
US regulators shut down 33rd bank this year...ADLEN READ, AP Business Writer

http://www.fresnobee.com/559/v-print/story/1390507.html
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized the small bank and said its nine branches and nearly all of its deposits will be taken over by Kitsap Bank of Port Orchard, Wash.
Westsound Bank is the second bank based in the state of Washington to collapse this year, after the Bank of Clark County in January.
Westsound, which served the Puget Sound area, was hit hard by losses in construction loans.
It had total assets of $334.6 million as of March 31, and total deposits of $304.5 million.
Kitsap Bank will assume Westsound's deposits, except for the roughly $9.4 million managed by brokers. The FDIC said customers who placed money with brokers should contact the brokers directly.
Kitsap will also buy $49.3 million of Westsound's assets. The FDIC will keep the remaining assets to sell later. The cost to the U.S. deposit insurance fund will be $108 million.
The country's wave of bank closures - particularly the expensive collapse of California's IndyMac Bank - reduced the deposit insurance fund to $18.9 billion as of Dec. 31. That is the lowest level in nearly 25 years, and down 64 percent from $52.4 billion at the end of 2007.
Over the next five years, the FDIC expects bank failures to cost the insurance fund around $65 billion. The fund is paid for by insured financial institutions.
Regulators are adding staff and facilities to deal with the growing number of failing banks. The FDIC said Friday it will open a temporary satellite office in Jacksonville, Fla., to manage receiverships and liquidate assets from failed banks mainly in eastern states. The office will accommodate up to 500 temporary staff and contractors.
The government has vowed, though, that it will not allow the nation's largest banks to fail, after conducting "stress tests" on the institutions.
The Federal Reserve determined Thursday that 10 of the 19 biggest U.S. banks need to raise a total of $75 billion in capital to withstand a severe recession. The capital shortfall of Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp. - $33.9 billion - was by far the largest.
NEW YORK Federal regulators on Friday shut down Westsound Bank of Bremerton, Wash., making it the 33rd bank to fail this year.
Sacramento Bee
California, feds at odds over Delta smelt...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/v-print/story/1847151.html
California water officials are fighting back against federal protections for an iconic Delta fish, a tactical shift that threatens to derail a cooperative attempt to fix the state's water problems.
In a petition filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday, the state Department of Water Resources argues rules should be changed because new research suggests a separate group of threatened Delta smelt has taken refuge on Liberty Island and is unaffected by water operations.
If successful, the state would avoid future releases of hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water for the benefit of the tiny fish – water that could otherwise meet needs of users throughout California.
Liberty Island at the southern end of the Yolo Bypass, along the Sacramento River near Rio Vista, is owned by the Trust for Public Land. Its levees are breached, allowing tides to wash over the island, creating feeding and resting habitat.
New findings by DWR and state Fish and Game biologists indicate the flooded island is a year-round haven for some smelt, said DWR Deputy Director Jerry Johns. This may make the population more resilient than previously believed and less dependent on freshwater flow rules.
The research is unpublished and ongoing, he said.
The federal rules, called a biological opinion, govern water management in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to prevent smelt from being killed in water export pumps. The rules were revised six months ago in response to a lawsuit by environmental groups.
DWR objects to a particular fall condition that could require as much as 400,000 acre-feet of water to be released from its Oroville Reservoir to create downstream flows beneficial to smelt. That's enough water to serve 1 million households for a year.
"The water supply impacts to us are dramatic," Johns said. "We think this idea of creating habitat is a much more effective way to address the Delta smelt issue than throwing a bunch of water at it."
The fall rule won't affect water supplies this year. It only applies in a fall season following a wetter-than-normal winter – expected in one of five years.
Environmental groups criticized DWR's petition.
"The reason DWR would think tidal marsh is good for Delta smelt is that it doesn't involve water," said Tina Swanson, executive director of the Bay Institute, a plaintiff in the original lawsuit to protect smelt. "The important habitat for them is not tidal marsh. What Delta smelt need more than anything else is water."
This was supported by Bill Bennett, a UC Davis ecologist and leading smelt expert. He doubts the smelt on Liberty Island are a distinct group and said the island's importance to smelt is not new information.
"Their population tends to be dictated more by how much outflow there is, where it is and the movements the fish make in response," he said.
The smelt, a native fingerling that lives for only one year, is considered a bellwether for the Delta ecosystem. Its population has plunged since 2001 from a combination of water diversions, pollution and foreign species.
Fisheries experts fear the smelt is on the verge of extinction. They warn more extinctions and serious water quality problems will follow.
"We really do want to protect Delta smelt," said Johns. "We just think there's a better way to do this."
Critics say DWR's petition conflicts with other aspects of its Delta water strategy.
They call it ironic, given that the Delta Vision Task Force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended greater fall flows to help smelt.
The governor also ordered a statewide water conservation strategy. Recently released in draft form, it finds modest efforts could conserve 1.7 million acre-feet every year, or four times more than the potential smelt-related pumping losses.
The agency wants to build a water canal around the Delta through a process called the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan. If adopted as planned in 2010, it would replace the federal rules contested by DWR with a broader multi-species restoration program.
Environmental groups are collaborating on the plan, though the alliance is fragile and most have not taken a stand on the canal.
As part of the plan, DWR would commit to help restore 55,000 acres of tidal marsh habitat like that on Liberty Island. But the draft now being discussed would not create any of this new habitat until 10 years after the plan is adopted.
"This kind of behavior by the agency is not something that generates trust and goodwill among the parties that are currently negotiating with them," Swanson said. "We are very disappointed in this."
Fish and Wildlife Service officials had no specific comments on DWR's petition because they are still studying it.  
Stockton Record
Request to reconsider protective smelt rules...The Record
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090509/A_NEWS/905090316
SACRAMENTO - New rules protecting Delta smelt from the water export pumps near Tracy should be reconsidered to allow for more pumping, state water officials said this week in a formal request to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Smelt populations have recently been found outside the influence of the pumps, the Department of Water Resources argued in its request. For that reason, Fish and Wildlife should relax restrictions on the amount of water that can be exported from the Delta, officials said.
The current restrictions were issued in December after a federal judge ruled the old restrictions were not adequate.
Environmental groups responded in a letter Friday that they were disappointed that the state wanted a "second bite at the apple" by asking federal officials to rewrite the rules yet again. The Natural Resources Defense Council called it an attempt to "politicize science."
Fish and Wildlife officials have said that smelt protections this year have little to do with the lack of water south of the Delta, where unemployment is high and some fields have been fallowed.
State wants smelt rules rewritten.... again...Alex Breitler's Blog
http://blogs.recordnet.com/sr-abreitler
The smelt saga continues.
The state Department of Water Resources, trying to export more water to the thirsty far reaches of California, wants the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its brand-new rules to protect threatened smelt. Those rules set limits on how much water can be pumped from the Delta, thus protecting smelt which are helplessly sucked into the pumps and killed.
Read DWR's letter: ...
Here's the interesting part: The rules that DWR wants rewritten were just issued in December. Fish and Wildlife was ordered by a federal judge to write the December rules because previous guidelines were ruled inadequate to protect fish.
The enviros called DWR's move this week "a second bite at the apple" and pointed out that restrictions to protect smelt have little to do with the lack of water in some places south of the Delta.
DWR's argument is based on recent research at Liberty Island which apparently revealed the existence of a Delta smelt population that is far enough from the pumps to escape harm. "This population suggests that Delta smelt are less susceptible to a catastrophic event than previously thought," the state argues in its letter.
This will never end, will it?
Department of Water Resources...Letter...5-7-09
http://online.recordnet.com/projects/blog/2009/0508reconsultation.pdf
Groundwork laid for bullet train link...Zachary K. Johnson
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090509/A_NEWS/905090312
STOCKTON - State and local transportation officials struck a deal this week to one day upgrade rail service connecting the Central Valley to the Bay Area, paving the way to tap into a planned high-speed rail system linking Northern and Southern California.
This new corridor would house both the Altamont Commuter Express train and a supplement spur of a planned bullet train running up and down the spine of the state.
The California High Speed Rail's mainline is set to enter the Bay Area further south through the Pacheco Pass, but the new Altamont spur will boost regional transportation and still tie into the system promising to take travelers to Los Angeles at speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour.
There are no dates for when regional trains will start rolling, but environmental studies are under way.
This week the California High Speed Rail Authority and the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission agreed to work together to develop that new rail corridor through the pass. Officials said it could enhance and expand the ACE line connecting Stockton to San Jose and further link the rapidly growing Valley to jobs throughout the Bay Area.
"This is great news for the Central Valley," said Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston, whose district includes part of San Joaquin County. She has authored both pending and past high-speed rail legislation, including a bill that last year opened up funding for the Altamont corridor as part of a $10 billion measure passed by voters in November.
The Northern California branches of the main high-speed rail line will terminate in San Francisco and Sacramento. The San Francisco leg crosses into the Valley near Los Banos. Northern San Joaquin Valley officials would have liked to see that spur cross through the Altamont, but local officials are happy about the planned supplemental spur through the Altamont.
The agreement would improve ACE service by allowing trains to run on new, agency-owned tracks used for passenger rail only, regional rail officials said. ACE trains currently run on privately owned track shared with freight trains.
The plan is that both ACE trains and future high-speed rail trains would travel along the new corridor, connecting to other transportation systems. One idea is to connect to a planned Bay Area Rapid Transit extension in Livermore, officials said.
The ultimate goal is to have high-speed trains on electrified tracks, though the terrain through the hills would prevent the trains from reaching the more than 200 miles per hour the trains could reach on the system's proposed main line, said Brian Schmidt, planning director at the Regional Rail Commission.
Just where new regional rail stops might sprout in the East Bay depends on where the job growth is, Executive Director Stacey Mortenson said.
"Wherever the numbers are, ... we'll send the train there."
Development is possible because the Rail Commission and the High-Speed Rail Authority are working in tandem, she said. The memorandum of understanding is just the first of many that will increase in specifics, she said.
Environmental planning is currently under way and is expected to continue for at least another 12 months, she said.
San Francisco Chronicle
City makes case to shut Mirant plant in 2010...Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BATG17HDP1.DTL&type=printable
San Francisco officials believe that by next year they could completely shutter the city's last large power plant - a polluting, diesel-burning behemoth that fouls the city's eastern skies and the bay's water.
The closure of the Dogpatch neighborhood plant requires approval from a state regulatory agency, the California Independent System Operator, which is charged with ensuring that energy service will remain on even in the case of a major infrastructure failure.
While ISO officials have said a large portion of the plant can shut down next year when a new transmission cable comes online, Mayor Gavin Newsom and other city leaders laid out on Friday what they called a strong case for the Mirant Potrero Power Plant's entire closure.
In a letter signed by Newsom, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Supervisors Sophie Maxwell, Michela Alioto-Pier and David Chiu, and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Chief Ed Harrington, the city argues that with this year's improvement of the Martin-Hunters Point cable and next year's scheduled completion of the Trans Bay Cable - along with some smaller transmission projects - the biggest piece of the natural gas plant should be able to safely be shuttered by the end of this year. And by the end of 2010, the city argues, the three remaining smaller generators can be shut down.
"We're very pleased with the progress that's been made," Newsom said Friday. "This is not by any stretch done. ... But I think we're getting closer to a final solution."
Maxwell - whose district includes both the Mirant-owned power plant and the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. plant in Hunters Point that closed in 2006 - was also optimistic.
Both the mayor and Maxwell have vowed to shutter the plants and have political capital riding on the outcome.
ISO spokeswoman Stephanie McCorkle said that the agency's position remains unchanged - that the three smaller units cannot be shut down - but that regulators are "certainly open to ... other proposals."
The plant's smokestack is not its only problem. The property is contaminated with coal tar that is probably leaching into the bay mud. Also, part of the 40-year-old plant runs under an expired permit that allows it to draw in millions of gallons of water per day and return heated discharge to the bay, killing fish larvae.
Herrera sued Mirant last month, claiming that the company has failed to comply with laws requiring brick buildings to be retrofitted and that it poses a safety risk to employees. On Friday, Herrera said he was heartened by the apparent progress on shuttering the plant but the lawsuit will keep moving forward.
"It's one of the oldest and filthiest plants in the state," he said.
State asks feds to review pro-smelt water rules...Kelly Zito
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BAH017HDGQ.DTL&type=printable
California has asked federal officials to take another look at controversial rules that slashed water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect the endangered delta smelt.
The state Department of Water Resources said in a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the giant delta pumps funneling water to two-thirds of California may not be as harmful to the thumb-sized fish as thought. Urban and agricultural runoff may also play a role, the agency contends.
Pumping restrictions imposed after a December 2008 opinion by the wildlife agency "unnecessarily create significant adverse impacts on the state's water supply and economy," the water agency said.
Federal officials are preparing an official response.
Environmentalists who view the smelt as a harbinger of the fragile delta's demise argue that the rules should stay in place, while farmers say the pumping curbs compound the already-dry weather.
Los Angeles Times
U.S. global warming rules won't change to help polar bears
The Endangered Species Act 'is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue,' Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says in announcing that the Bush-era policy on emissions will stand...Jim Tankersley
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-polar-bear9-2009may09,0,1635231,print.story
Reporting from Washington — The Interior Department on Friday let stand a Bush administration policy barring the federal government from using the precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population as a reason to crack down on global warming, upsetting environmentalists and cheering oil and gas companies.
The decision means the government cannot use the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar explicitly has blamed those emissions for the habitat erosion that last year landed the polar bear on the list of threatened species.
"The single greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic Sea ice due to climate change," Salazar said in a conference call announcing the decision. But the Endangered Species Act "is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue," he added.
Like Bush administration officials before them, Interior officials said it would be impossible to directly link any one factory or power plant to the decline in polar ice, and thus impractical to regulate their emissions.
Environmental groups promised to sue.
"It just doesn't make any sense to recognize that the polar bear is threatened and then exempt the primary threat to the species," said Noah Greenwald, biodiversity program director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Andrew Wetzler, who directs the endangered species project for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the decision was illegal and that the group would "continue to fight it in court."
Energy industry groups celebrated Friday, as did many Republicans.
"The Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation's carbon emissions," said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.
Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, praised Salazar for what he called "a common-sense decision that will ensure more jobs are not lost due to excessive regulations of greenhouse gases by the government."
President George W. Bush's Interior Department listed the polar bear as threatened last year. But shortly before Bush left office, the agency issued a rule prohibiting the government from using the bear's status under the Endangered Species Act to curb greenhouse gas emissions, closing what Bush officials called a "back door" to climate regulation.
Salazar pledged to reconsider the rule when he took office in January. On Friday, he said that revoking the rule would lead to "uncertainty and confusion" in the department's efforts to protect polar bears.
Instead, he said, the U.S. must tackle climate change with a comprehensive set of emissions limits, such as the one President Obama is pushing Congress to enact this year.
Congress never intended for the species act to regulate climate change, Salazar said. He sidestepped the question of how that was different from the Clean Air Act, which Obama critics contend was not intended to address climate change either, but which is being used by the EPA to regulate emissions.
Salazar has overturned several last-minute Bush environmental rules. He rescinded one that would have allowed federal agencies to bypass expert biologists and determine on their own whether their projects threatened endangered plants or animals. He also blocked the issuance of oil and gas drilling leases near national parks in Utah.
Yet Salazar sided with Bush on another high-profile species issue, moving ahead with a plan to remove gray wolves from the endangered list in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Mountain West.
Washington Post
Species Act Won't Be Used to Force Lower Emissions...David A. Fahrenthold
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/08/AR2009050802103_pf.html
The federal bureaucracy that safeguards endangered species isn't equipped to tackle climate change, Interior Department officials said yesterday -- declining to protect Alaskan polar bears by cracking down on polluters in the Lower 48.
The decision, announced yesterday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was the Obama administration's first word on an emerging environmental question.
The 35-year-old Endangered Species Act was designed to save animals from close-by threats such as hunting, trapping and logging. But, now that U.S. species from mountainsides to tropical seas are threatened by climate change, can it be used to fight a global problem?
Salazar, upholding a decision made in the last months of the Bush administration, said no.
"The Endangered Species Act is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue," Salazar said in a conference call with reporters. Instead, he said, the administration will push Congress to enact legislation setting national caps on greenhouse gases.
Polar bears were listed as threatened last year, the first time any species had been given protection primarily because of climate change. Scientists say that warming temperatures erode the bears' sea-ice habitat. If current trends continue, three of the world's four major populations may be extinct by 2075.
Environmental groups said this ought to trigger federal action against the source of the problem, greenhouse-gas emissions.
But yesterday, federal officials said that was impractical. They said the law requires a causal connection between a particular polar bear and a particular polluter's emissions -- an impossible task, they said, given that greenhouse gases come from factories, power plants and automobiles, many of them thousands of miles away.
"We have to have the smoking gun and the dead animal," said Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In this case, Fellows said, agency scientists cannot prove that sort of link: "You can't link the power plant in Florida with a dead bear in Alaska." Officials from several industry associations used this same logic yesterday in applauding the decision.
Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they will still protect the bear from threats closer to home, such as hunting and oil and gas exploration in Alaska. They added that, for procedural reasons, rejecting the Bush administration rule would not have immediately changed the rules that apply to polar bears anyway.
But the decision could still set an important precedent, as legislation to cap greenhouse-gas emissions is still a long way from passage, and a number of other animals with climate-related problems are already on the federal docket.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is already pondering how to help two Caribbean corals dying in a warmer ocean -- and this week it agreed to consider the possibility of protecting the American pika, a mountain mammal that can't live above 77.9 degrees.
"If we were in a situation where we already had very, very strong climate legislation," the polar bear decision would be less important, said Melanie Duchin, a Greenpeace "campaigner" in Anchorage, Alaska. "Right now, it's a vacuum."
New York Times
U.S. Curbs Use of Species Act in Protecting Polar Bear...ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/science/earth/09bear.html?_r=1&sq=endangered%20species&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print
The Obama administration said Friday that it would retain a wildlife rule issued in the last days of the Bush administration that says the government cannot invoke the Endangered Species Act to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases threatening the polar bear and its habitat.
In essence, the decision means that two consecutive presidents have judged that the act is not an appropriate means of curbing the emissions that scientists have linked to global warming.
The bear was listed as a threatened species under the act last May. But the special rule, adopted in December, said this designation did not give the Interior Department the authority to limit greenhouse gases outside the bears’ Arctic range.
In announcing Friday that the rule would stand, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, “The single greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice due to climate change.” But, Mr. Salazar said, the global risk from greenhouse gases, which are generated worldwide, requires comprehensive policies, not a patchwork of agency actions carried out for particular species.
“It would be very difficult for our scientists to be doing evaluations of a cement plant in Georgia or Florida and the impact it’s going to have on the polar bear habitat,” Mr. Salazar said. “I just don’t think the Endangered Species Act was ever set up with that contemplation in mind.”
“I do think what makes sense is for us to move forward with climate change and energy legislation,” he added. “It is a signature issue of these times.”
Environmental groups have turned in recent years to a variety of legal tools, including the endangered species law, as a strategy to force government agencies to rein in emissions that scientists say are the dominant cause of recent warming.
This year, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency, prodded by a lawsuit, agreed under the Clean Water Act to start assessing the risks posed by the main greenhouse gas emission, carbon dioxide, as it is absorbed in seawater.
And only this week, also in response to a lawsuit, the Interior Department announced that a study was being undertaken to assess whether another mammal, the diminutive American pika, should be listed as threatened because of climate change.
The administration’s decision to retain the polar bear rule appears to signal President Obama’s willingness to let such suits play out in the courts as broader policies are developed to fight global warming.
Environmentalists who had been pressing the White House to drop the Bush-era rule criticized the decision, predicting that the rule would ultimately be deemed illegal in the courts.
“The action taken by Salazar today, and the spin on that action, is every bit as cynical, abusive and antiscientific as the Bush administration,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of several environmental groups that have sued to challenge the rule.
Some critics of the decision said it contradicted the approach the administration took when it chose to pursue restrictions on greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. That measure, which applies to national air pollution standards, is also not a perfect fit for a globally dispersed gas like carbon dioxide, they said.
Yet Democratic lawmakers, dozens of whom had signed a letter to Mr. Salazar urging that the rule be dropped, were largely silent on Friday. They are pushing hard for climate legislation limiting greenhouse gases and are still working out details with Mr. Obama.
Republicans in Congress and industry representatives had argued that without the rule, any proposed housing development, power plant or other project requiring a government permit could face a review of how its emissions might harm not only polar bears but eventually a list of other species that could be imperiled by climate change.
Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, endorsed Friday’s move by the administration, saying it would provide “greater regulatory certainty not only to the oil and natural gas industry but also to all U.S. manufacturers.”
Some environmental campaigners offered a mixed view of the situation.
John Kostyack, executive director for wildlife conservation and global warming at the National Wildlife Federation, criticized the decision to retain the rule, which he said falsely asserted that there was no direct link between specific greenhouse gas emissions and the decline in the polar bear’s habitat.
But Mr. Kostyack said there was no way that the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Interior Department agency responsible for carrying out the Endangered Species Act, could handle the burden of trying to police emissions.
In addition to conventional threats, a vital focus for wildlife managers should be figuring out how to help vulnerable species adapt to climate stresses, he said.
“The last thing we want to do,” he said, “is saddle them with solving the causes of global warming, too.”
Polar Bear Protection Update...Andrew C. Revkin. Courtesy Steven C. Amstrup. Steven C. Amstrup, a biologist with the United States Geological Survey, poses with the cubs of a sedated polar bear....Dot Earth 
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/polar-bear-protection-updates/?pagemode=print
[UPDATE, 5/8: The Obama administration has stuck, for now, with a Bush administration rule saying that the threatened listing for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act can't be used to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases. Interior Department officials said that the administration is committed to controlling such emissions using other means and protecting the bears from more direct threats using the act and other environmental laws.]
A widely cited critique of the climate and polar bear research underpinning last year’s federal listing of polar bears as threatened with extinction has itself been critiqued. The new paper, “Rebuttal of ‘Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit,’ ” is available online. (UPDATE, 5/8: The journal has kindly posted the article as a freely available pdf file.) in Interfaces, the same journal that published the original work. (The journal focuses on management science and problem solving using modeling and statistics, with recent studies on an amazing array of issues, from scheduling a Belgian soccer league to long-term planning by a Catholic diocese in Texas.)
The new polar bear paper is by a group of authors led by Steven Amstrup, the United States Geological Survey polar bear biologist who led the government analysis of the bear’s prospects.
[INSERT, 5/8: The paper challenges the three main criticisms leveled by the authors of last year's critique, which was led by J. Scott Armstrong, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania. (Another author was Willie Soon, a physicist affiliated with the Marshall Institute, a group generally opposing regulatory solutions to environmental problems.)
They challenged the paper's reliance on general circulation models of climate, or GCM's, as a forecasting tool, questioned the objectivity of the team assessing the bears' prospects and asserted that the bear analysis did not follow basic principles of forecasting. The new paper rejects each complaint. On the computer modeling, the authors say that simulations -- particularly on the time scale of the next century or so -- are highly credible. "Natural variability and uncertainty in climate feedbacks prevent GCMs from predicting the year in which ice-free summers will first occur. However, we can be confident that, given continued GHG increases, ice-free Arctic summers ultimately will become the norm."]
I’ve sent the paper to some bear and climate experts (and to the authors of the critique) to see what they think. I’ll post updates here as they come in. I’m also checking to see if the full rebuttal can be freely posted, given that the other paper is available to everyone now. That only seems fair.
Here’s Dr. Amstrup’s note about the paper:
Attack on U.S.G.S. Polar Bear Science Rebutted:
On May 15, 2008, then-Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne classified the polar bear as a threatened species under the U. S. Endangered Species Act. U.S.G.S. reports forecasting strong declines in polar bear habitat and numbers were keys to that decision. In response, Armstrong et al. (Interfaces, 38(5):382-405, 2008) questioned the General Circulation Models (GCMs) upon which U.S.G.S. analyses relied; challenged the independence of U.S.G.S. from the policy process; and criticized the methods used by the U.S.G.S. to project the future status of polar bears. In addition to publishing their critique of the U.S.G.S. reports, Armstrong and his coauthors garnered a lot of press. Armstrong testified before Congress and made numerous public statements carried by a variety of media outlets, that served to cast doubt about the reality of global warming and its threat to polar bears. They also contracted with the State of Alaska to provide justification of the State’s opposition to the listing of polar bears as a threatened species.
In a rebuttal to be published in the July-August Issue of Interfaces, U.S.G.S. personnel and co-authors justify use of GCMs for forecasting future climate and show that every major point in Armstrong et al. (2008) was wrong or misleading. We reaffirm that global warming is real and that it poses a serious threat to the future welfare of polar bears. Because there is considerable misunderstanding about global warming and the ability to forecast it, and because casting doubt about global warming was central to the arguments of Armstrong and his coauthors, we provide a tutorial on global warming and how it is incorporated into climate models. In short, we show that publication of Armstrong et al. (2008) and the other associated actions of Armstrong and his coauthors only served to distract from reasoned public policy debate about polar bears and global warming. An advance copy of our rebuttal is now available online, to Interfaces subscribers, at http://interfaces.journal.informs.org/papbyrecent.dtl.
Steven C. Amstrup, Ph.D
Senior Polar Bear Scientist, U.S. Geological Survey