Disrespecting Republican Icons
President Ronald Reagan. While Governor, Reagan signed the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act into law. WhiteHouse.gov (public domain).
Republican California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the legislation creating the California wild & scenic river system in 1972. In 1989, California Governor George Deukmejian (the Duke), also a Republican, signed legislation providing similar protection for the McCloud River under the state Wild & Scenic Rivers Act.
On October 26, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the Energy & Water appropriations bill, H.R. 4394, containing a rider attempting to preempt a key provision of Deukmejian's protection of the McCloud River (§535) and end the prohibition in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) prohibiting federal construction spending to expand Shasta Reservoir (§531) onto the state-protected reach of the McCloud River. The corresponding bill in the Senate does not contain such provisions.
Governor George “The Duke” Deukmejian added protections for the McCloud River to the CA Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Governors of California Portrait Gallery (public domain).
Sadly, this was not the first act of disrespect by a Republican House of Representatives. Back in 2012 and 2014, the Republican-controlled House passed bills to un-designate part of the Merced national wild & scenic river, which had been added to the federal system by Reagan’s Republican successor, George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush had also signed national wild & scenic river bills for portions of the Sespe, Sisquoc, and Big Sur Rivers).
The House Energy & Water appropriations bill does more. It extends the somewhat sunsetted Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016. That bill, the “WIIN,” subsidizes more federal and non-federal dam building, permanently locks in federal water-service contracts for the overtapped California Central Valley Project (CVP), locks in the Trump-era biological opinions for the operation of the CVP, ends the ownership acreage restrictions in the Central Valley Project, and more). It drew environmentalist opposition.
President George H.W. Bush, who added several California rivers to the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
The fate of this bill will emerge in the final Energy & Water Appropriations bill, omnibus or minibus bills including this subject matter, or a continuing resolution. Members of the U.S. House and Senate will determine what language is sent to the President for signature.
The Administration is threatening to veto H.R. 4394. The statement of Administration policy includes mention of the end of the financing prohibition but does not mention the egregious provision of overriding a state wild & scenic rivers act.
