Articles

PLF asks Ninth Circuit to invalidate delta smelt restrictions

January 25, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton Today, Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys will file an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, asking the court to invalidate the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's delta smelt water cutbacks as unconstitutional. The appeal will be filed not only on behalf of PLF's farming clients (Stewart & Jasper Orchards, Arroyo Farms, a ...

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The ramifications of the Obama administration's man-made California drought

January 25, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton Big Government's John Loudon has a great article on why it's important for the entire country to wake up and realize that the Obama administration is putting fish before people. Loudon explains that the ramifications of cutting off water to the San Joaquin Valley go far beyond California: As for the rest … ...

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The Constitution is (fortunately) a stubborn document

January 25, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton The Natural Resource Defense Council's Barry Nelson doesn't like what Pacific Legal Foundation is doing when it comes to California's water. (See his NRDC Switchboard blog post, "Facts are stubborn things"). According to Nelson, PLF and others have been "particularly careful to ignore facts that ...

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Federal court orders more water for San Joaquin Valley

February 05, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton In a major ruling, a federal court in Fresno has ordered the federal government to stop depriving the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California of water under the June 2009 National Marine Fisheries Service salmon biological opinion. Water is desperately needed in these parts of California, but even though the Golden Stat ...

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Don’t be fooled : "fish vs. people" is real

February 17, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton With Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to increase water deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, there’s been a renewed discussion of the “fish vs. people” theme that accompanies the debate on California’s water policy.  For example, the Fresno Bee’s Jim Boren sugg ...

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It is "frighteningly clear that despite all good intentions, the Endangered Species Act is making a bad situation worse."

February 18, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton Looks like more and more people are waking up to the uncompromising nature of the Endangered Species Act.  Here is the Merced Sun-Star's Steve Cameron: I have been a lifetime environmentalist, nearly always supporting regulations to save existing wildlife and protecting the ecosystems that keep our fragile planet ...

Articles

When the stakes are high, the L.A. Times ignores the problem

February 23, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton According to the Los Angeles Times, the regulatory drought isn't a crisis worth solving: Though the west valley's farms are important to the state's economy, they are located in a naturally arid landscape that's unsuited to agriculture . . . .  If cuts in water deliveries make it expensive to farm in ...

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The Endangered Species Act and water uncertainty aren't going away anytime soon

March 03, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton Much has been made about the Bureau of Reclamation's announcement last week that farmers in the western San Joaquin Valley will receive 30% of their contractual water allotments if 2010 is an average water year.  As I mentioned earlier this week, that's a very big "if."  The San Francisco Chro ...

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The fight for water continues

April 07, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Brandon Middleton It's not a great time right now for farmers and water users throughout the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. Despite significant precipitation over the past several months, the federal government is currently preventing a vast amount of water from flowing to where it's most needed. Instead of certain deli ...