ken..."Do you really expect Republicans to vote for a cut in agricultural subsidies to wealthy farmers?"...
Ya mean like this sort of wealthy farmer?
Senator Feinstein Teams Up With Billionaire Farmers And Corporate Raiders To Mount Hostile Takeover of California’s Water
By Yasha Levine
February 13, 2010
exiledonline.com
This story was first published on Alternet.org
California’s Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein showed Californians who she really serves this past Thursday, when news emerged that she was trying to ram through a massive transfer of precious water out of the hands of millions of state residents, and into the private pockets of a clique of billionaire corporate farmers.
Here’s how the San Francisco Chronicle described the swindle:
Feinstein wants to attach the proposal as an amendment to a fast-tracked Senate jobs bill. She is pitching the plan as a jobs measure to address the economic calamity in the Central Valley. It would increase farm water allocations from 10 percent last year to 40 percent this year and next, an amount that farmers say is the bare minimum they need.
Bay Area Democrats were livid, accusing Feinstein of concocting the plan in secret, upending fragile water negotiations that Feinstein has supported and pitting California’s Central Valley against its coast.
According to McClatchy, the amendment had been around for some time, and had already gone through numerous drafts when it was discovered. They were right to be upset. The water transfer would decimate Northern California’s already fragile ecosystem, threaten endangered species of fish and decrease its scarce drinking water supply.
Water is a sacred issue in California that one day will surely lead to a North-South showdown that could get ugly. Any major change in the state’s water policy is so fraught with danger and consequences, that it makes negotiations over how to divide it a long and difficult process. In our imperfect democratic system, this is how we resolve the most difficult problems we face, when different communities have so much at stake. Feinstein apparently decided that democracy wasn’t in her interests–or the interests of the rich corporate farmers she serves–so she is trying to circumvent the whole process by sneaking through legislation before anyone can figure it out. For Californians, it was an act of treason, putting the interests of Big Agro above the needs of millions of people who think she represents them. Feinstein was born and raised in San Francisco, where she rose to political prominence; now, she’s screwing her hometown region most of all.
Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, attacked Feinstein’s move: “Best I can see, she’s making a decision that jobs in the Bay Area and Northern California and the Peninsula south of San Francisco aren’t as important as jobs in the Central Valley [which has a fraction of the Bay Area's population].”
Feinstein’s sneakiness has something to do with serving Stewart Resnick, a Beverly Hills billionaire and one of the richest men in California. Resnick owns Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful, pesticide manufacturer Suterra and Paramount Agribusiness, the largest farming company in America and the largest pistachio and almond producer in the world. Resnick is also the brain behind a little-known water privatization scheme that brought Enron-style deregulation and privatization to California’s water market and made him one of the largest, if not the largest, private water brokers in America. He also happens to be friend and major contributor to Feinstein’s political career.
Lately he’s been putting pressure on the Senator to badger the Obama administration into loosening environmental regulations and releasing more water to California’s farmers. Feinstein complied, even handing a letter written by Resnick directly over to the White House. News of this sleazy influence-peddling sparked a closer look at Feinstein’s dealings with Resnick: |
