Last weeks of legislators may end the debate on the Delta tunnel

From And WaltersCalmness

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Tanned, rested and probably ready after a summer holiday vacation, state lawsters He will return to Capitol next week for the last month of their 2025 session.

The last weeks of the session will be dominated by bills aimed at registering the dislike of Blue California and the opposition of President Donald Trump. The most famous will be the plan of governor Gavin News borders From the 52 Congresses in California, giving five more places to combat Democrats in Texas to create five more republican places.

Despite the Capitol fixation on the national political maneuver – lit by Newsom’s Probably an offer for the White House – There are hanging questions that reach home closer. None has been more important than what has been kicking for at least six decades, a project to strengthen shipments from North-South in California, bypassing the Delta of Sacramento-San Joaquin.

The project has traveled several names and has been overcome from the “peripheral channel”, carrying water around the delta to tunnels with twins under the delta and recently, to a tunnel called Delta transportation projectS

The Newsom Administration believes that it only needs one more thing to get the green light, legislation to release the project from the clear process of the California Law on Environmental Quality, thus denying critics to delay the work.

NEWSOM hoped that it could clear the CEQA’s obstacle with a “trailer bill” attached to the state budget approved in June, taking advantage of the budget process and an accelerated budget.

“For a long time, attempts to modernize our critical water infrastructure have stopped in endless bureaucracy, burdened with unnecessary delay,” Newsom said. “We have finished the barriers. Our country must finish this project as soon as possible so that we can better store and manage the water in order to prepare for a hot, drier future. Let’s build it.”

Northern California legislators oppose the tunnel persuade their leaders to stop using a bill with trailersBut the NEWSOM defenders and the tunnels, such as the Southern California Water Quarter, will try again in the last weeks of the session.

Tunnel supporters say it will make the huge water system in California that pats the rivers in Northern California to deliver water to a relatively dry southern California through California aqueduct, more reliable, bypassing the eco -friendly delta.

This is true as far as it comes. But opponents say that the deviations of the water on the Sacramento River in the tunnel would deprive the delta of the water, which should be a healthy habitat for fish and other wildlife.

The debate is essentially raging on these lines, as the state water project was first built in the 60s. During his first government half a century ago, Jerry Brown won legislative approval for the then channel, just to cancel it from the voters through a 1982 referendum.

NEWSOM is trying to sweeten the deal by offering the Delta $ 200 million to compensate for the impact of the project. But whether Newsom can get what it wants from the legislature remains uncertain because the democratic legislators who are an super master are approximately divided by geographical lines.

“The legislature correctly rejected the governor of the governor to quickly track the Delta tunnel project in June and must reject it again,” said the delta Delta Delta last week. “Delta Communities, which will be devastated by this inaccessible and unnecessary project, cannot be redeemed with $ 200 million. In fact, no amount of money can compensate for the destruction of thousands of acres of major agricultural land and the loss of fishing and historically tribal resources.”

The ward is so sharp that Republicans, although small in number, can be decisive.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.