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This guest post from Patriot News Daily Clearinghouse turns a critical eye toward Senator Feinstein’s efforts to rewrite long-standing California water policy.  It then turns to some great links re climate and environmental issues.

The only benefit to Sen. Feinstein’s new measure to unilaterally rewrite California water policy might be to galvanize enough Democrats to finally dump her. True to her secrecy fetish, she has not yet released details of her proposal to allocate more Delta water to farmers by essentially creating an exemption in the Endangered Species Act. California does not need Di stoking water wars. Her measure infuriates environmental activists, fishing groups, fellow Democrats and gives Senator Boxer an unnecessary political headache as she faces re-election with right-winger Carly Fiorina.

Feinstein plans to attach her amendment to a federal jobs bill. Leaked details indicate it is an anti-science policy parroting Sean Hannity’s campaign. The timing of the measure violates her agreement with Democrats to wait for the science report.  The drafting of this measure is an end run around courts upholding the biological opinions and the stakeholder process working to find real solutions. Her approach is a short-sighted faux fix to water shortage by rewriting environmental laws rather than fixing the underlying water crisis.

Feinstein’s measure (called the Emergency Temporary Water Supply Amendment) would “ease” restrictions in the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which sounds like an exemption from compliance to allow more water to be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for farmers in the Central Valley. State and federal water projects had to implement cutbacks in water allocations due to water shortages from a 3-year statewide drought and pumping restrictions imposed to protect ESA listed fish of Chinook salmon and delta smelt. Feinstein’s measure would grant farmers “up to 40 percent of their federal water allocation for two years.” Most farmers received 10% of their contract allocation in 2009.

There is no question that reduced water allocations have wide ranging adverse impacts reported, including loss of jobs for farm workers and fishery industry and cropland idled. But Di ignores that the economic problems in the Central Valley are not just caused by the water shortage but are “due to many other factors.”  Moreover, for past few years, stakeholders, including state, federal and local agencies, environmental groups, fishery groups and interested citizens have been working to develop a conservation plan to protect species and improve reliability of water supplies, but two environmental groups now threaten to “walk away from collaborative government meetings if Feinstein is successful.”

California Democrats are irked that Feinstein is proceeding contrary to her agreement to wait for a report on the science:

Even some fellow members of California’s U.S. congressional delegation were annoyed with Feinstein, saying she had agreed with them to wait for a report by the National Academy of Sciences, which provides advice on scientific issues to U.S. policymakers, before drawing up any water policy changes.

“We had a couple meetings on this, and at the last meeting she had indicated that we would base any policy decisions we make on the science,” U.S. Representative Mike Thompson told Reuters. “And this policy change certainly isn’t based on science.”

Indeed, Feinstein’s secret measure will reportedly rewrite the biological opinions. No secret really as the biological opinions are the foundation for the water flow restrictions that the courts have upheld.

Feinstein’s urgency rationale is that the “unemployment rate is 40 percent in some valley towns and people are standing in bread lines.” This echoes Shawn Hannity’s faux outrage that “we have our own standing in food lines” as a means to create divisions among groups in California rather than doing the hard work among all stakeholders to find sustainable solutions to water shortages.

Feinstein’s water plan may also complicate Boxer’s re-election bid.

By announcing plans to override scientists and boost irrigation deliveries, Feinstein gratified Valley farmers and the region’s farm-friendly lawmakers. She also antagonized some key Democrats and emboldened Republicans hoping to challenge Boxer.

Enter right-winger Senate Candidate Carly Fiorina who wants to challenge Sen. Boxer:

On Friday, Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina sharpened the wedge created by Feinstein’s proposal to rewrite the so-called “biological opinions” that govern California water allocations and protect endangered species like Delta smelt and salmon.

More climate change news in tonight’s roundup:

CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY

• Carbon targets pledged at Copenhagen ‘fail to keep temperature rise to 2C’:  MIT analysis shows pledges submitted to the UN falls short of reduction targets by at least 11bn tonnes of CO2: Researchers conclude that the “emissions reduction pledges would allow global mean temperature to increase approximately 3.9C, a level that could see global warming run out of control.”
• Tar sands snubbed by ‘green’ retailers:  Eco-campaign against Alberta’s oil heats up with companies’ boycott.
  

  Organic food retailer Whole Foods Markets Ltd. and home furnishings chain Bed Bath and Beyond are believed to be the first major companies to stipulate to their fuel suppliers that they don’t want gasoline refined from crude oil coming from the Alberta oil sands.

  But see, Canada looks to China to exploit oil sands rejected by US:  “Canada courts Chinese investment in Alberta oil projects as US firms boycott tar sands fuel.”

• Algae to solve the Pentagon’s jet fuel problem:  “The brains trust of the Pentagon says it is just months away from producing a jet fuel from algae for the same cost as its fossil-fuel equivalent.”
• Report Says Offshore Cape Wind Farm in Nantucket Sound Would Save Billions over the next 25 years.
• Panel of world leaders aims to find ‘new and innovative’ ways to fund climate adaptation for developing nations.
• Nuclear Does Not Make Economic Sense Say Studies.
  

  The Citibank paper, titled ‘New Nuclear – The Economics Say No’, lists five major risks developers and operators of new nuclear power plants must confront. These risks are planning, construction, power price, operational, and decommissioning. According to the study, most governments in industrialised countries today have only “sought to limit the planning risk” for investors.

CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS

• Obama’s new climate change website provides data — like temperature, carbon dioxide, incoming sunlight, sea level, and arctic sea ice — to assist businesses to make long-term plans.  “For example, it’s easier for a wind power company to expand if it knows wind patterns.”
• EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is challenged by U.S. Chamber of Commerce on grounds of process rather than scientific issues.
• Internal document from Chinese government thinktank reveals China’s fears of rich nation ‘climate conspiracy’ at Copenhagen.

WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES

• Warming Water, rising ocean acidity and pollution cause U.S. to Consider ESA Protection for 82 Coral Species.
• U.S. to offer 37 million offshore acres for oil drilling located 3-230 miles off coasts.

WILDLIFE & ENDANGERED SPECIES

• Can Climate Shift the Biology of Ecosystems?
  

  The answer …  is that it isn’t easy — but it’s possible nevertheless. A team of scientists …  has combed through observations of more than 700 species of fish, birds, mammals, insects, amphibians, plankton and a wide variety of plants across the U.K. taken between 1976 and 2005, and found a consistent trend: more than 80% of “biological events” — including flowering of plants, ovulation among mammals and migration of birds — are coming earlier today than they were in the 1970s.
  On average, these events are occurring about 11 days earlier, and the pace of change has been accelerating with every decade.

• A home from home: saving species from climate change.
  

  Picture an elephant in the wild, making its stately progress across the savannah, tall grass bending beneath its feet. Now transplant that image to the American prairie. In one of the most startling new ideas to emerge about climate change, a leading conservation biologist is calling for plants and wildlife facing extinction to be saved simply by picking them up and moving them.