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Pacific Legal Foundation: Pipe dreams and the response to PLF’s “Save Our Water” Petition

Posted by: Maven on August 25, 2009 at 8:06 am

From the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty blog, this rebuttal to this recent NRDC Switchboard commentary by Doug Obegi:

“As my colleague Damien Schiff noted last week, Pacific Legal Foundation has submitted over 12,000 signatures to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to formally request the convening of the “God Squad.” The “God Squad” committee would be managed by the Obama administration and would have the power to exempt California’s water projects from draconian Endangered Species Act restrictions.

The immediate result of a successful “God Squad” campaign would be more water for the dry San Joaquin Valley. Rather than acknowledge this simple reality, the response of the environmental community has been to shift the debate to their own causes célèbres and ignore the fact that the Endangered Species Act is being used to manage California’s water supply. Consider, for example, NRDC’s Doub Obegi, who describes PLF’s ESA “God Squad” campaign as “rhetoric” and advocates for a “Virtual River” as “the best solution to meet the water needs of farmers, businesses, residents, fishermen, and the environment.”

That’s great, I suppose, but what is to be done about the Endangered Species Act and its stranglehold on California water management? Here, Obegi’s silence is deafening. You can come up with all of the long-term solutions to California’s water problems that you want, but unless you acknowledge the significant role the ESA is playing at present, it is a pipe dream to suggest your proposal will actually be a solution. …”

Read more from the Pacific Legal Foundation by clicking here.

August 25, 2009 · Filed Under Wildlife & Endangered Species

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