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Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 17:25:39 PM PST
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If you recall, I wrote about Dianne Feinstein providing favors for drought-stricken large campaign donors before. There's more to the story now. Sen. Feinstein just proposed a water plan for the Central Valley:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein ignited a firestorm among fellow California Democrats on Thursday as word spread of her proposal to divert Northern California water to Central Valley farmers.
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.
Why is she so eager to help farmers? The article goes on to say:
Feinstein has long supported California agriculture but began to weigh in on the side of farmers in the water wars after requests from Stewart Resnick, the well-connected owner of Paramount Farms, which grows citrus and nuts on 118,000 acres in Kern County.
In September, Resnick wrote Feinstein complaining that "sloppy science" by federal wildlife agencies was causing farm water shortages. A week later, Feinstein forwarded the letter to Obama administration officials, who authorized a review by the National Academy of Sciences.
"It seems to be a complete reversal of her position," Thompson said. "The entire Bay Area delegation had agreed we would do this National Academy of Sciences report to find out scientifically what should and shouldn't be done, and for her to turn that on its head and go out unilaterally with this proposal does not take into consideration the needs of all of California."
Resnick's business has given $29,000 to Feinstein's campaigns and $246,000 more to Democratic political committees during years when she sought re-election, according to a report by California Watch, an investigative journalism nonprofit organization, that was published in The Chronicle in December.
I really want to see her voted out of office. |
| Jill Richardson :: DiFi Does Something Sleazy |
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