<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp10ec77d6yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div><div><a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-california-water-congress-20181219-story.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-california-water-congress-20181219-story.html</a></div><div><span style="font-family: FBKisDisplay; font-size: 44px;">Democrats' House takeover could mean big changes for California water policy</span></div></div><div><span><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><span><div class="ydp96e56234card-footer ydp96e56234flex-container-row ydp96e56234flex-mobile-column ydp96e56234align-items-center" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 12px 24px;"><div class="ydp96e56234byline-container ydp96e56234flex-container-row ydp96e56234align-items-center" style="padding-right: 8px;"><div class="ydp96e56234hidden-mobile ydp96e56234spaced ydp96e56234spaced-right ydp96e56234spaced-sm" style="margin-right: 8px;"></div><div class="ydp96e56234byline-timestamp-container ydp96e56234flex-container-row ydp96e56234flex-tablet-column ydp96e56234flex-mobile-column ydp96e56234align-items-center"><div class="ydp96e56234byline-wrapper" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="ydp96e56234byline ydp96e56234byline-article" style="font-family: Benton Bold; line-height: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px;">By <a class="ydp96e56234uppercase" href="https://www.latimes.com/la-bio-sarah-d-wire-staff.html#nt=byline" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-transform: uppercase;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="ydp96e56234uppercase">SARAH D. WIRE</span></a></span></div><span class="ydp96e56234spaced ydp96e56234spaced-right ydp96e56234spaced-md ydp96e56234hidden-mobile" style="margin-right: 16px;"></span><div class="ydp96e56234timestamp-wrapper ydp96e56234flex-container-row ydp96e56234align-items-center ydp96e56234flex-mobile-column" style="line-height: normal;"><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span class="ydp96e56234timestamp ydp96e56234timestamp-article" style="font-family: Benton Medium; line-height: 12px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: uppercase;">DEC 19, 2018 </span><span class="ydp96e56234timestamp ydp96e56234spaced ydp96e56234spaced-sm ydp96e56234spaced-left ydp96e56234spaced-right ydp96e56234hidden-tablet" style="font-family: Benton Medium; line-height: 12px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-size: 10px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px;">|</span> <span class="ydp96e56234timestamp ydp96e56234timestamp-article ydp96e56234hidden-tablet" style="font-family: Benton Medium; line-height: 12px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: uppercase;">4:10 PM </span></div><br class="ydp96e56234Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div></div></div></span><p data-page="1" style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Among the changes ahead when Democrats take control of the House in January, add this one: The switch will upend the balance of power in California’s water wars.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 40px;">In the two years since Republicans’ 2016 election triumphs, party members from the Central Valley led by the current House majority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, have gotten several water bills for their area through Congress. Those included the first significant California-specific policy in decades, as part of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, also called the WIIN Act.</p></div></div><div class="ydp1d64d679teads-inread ydp1d64d679sm-screen" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 16px auto; max-width: 550px; min-height: 357px;"><div style="position: relative; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px !important;"><div class="ydp1d64d679teads-ui-components-adchoices" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; cursor: pointer; width: 15px; line-height: 15px; padding: 1px; background-size: 15px 15px; z-index: 1; margin-bottom: 0px !important; min-height: 15px;"></div><div class="ydp1d64d679teads-ui-components-credits" style="margin-bottom: 0px !important; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 9px !important; color: rgb(170, 170, 170) !important; text-align: right !important; padding: 1px 4px 1px 0px !important; line-height: 26px !important; letter-spacing: 0.3px !important; min-height: 26px;"><a href="https://www.teads.tv/viewable-outstream-formats/?utm_source=inread&utm_medium=credits&utm_campaign=invented%20by%20teads" style="cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(170, 170, 170) !important; letter-spacing: 0.3px !important; border: none !important; background-image: none !important; padding: 0px !important;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="ydp1d64d679teads-ui-components-credits-colored" style="display: inline !important; letter-spacing: 0.3px !important; color: rgb(121, 187, 233) !important;"></span></a></div><div class="ydp1d64d679teads-player" id="ydp1d64d679teads0" style="margin-bottom: 0px !important;"></div><div class="ydp1d64d679teads-ui-components-label" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; color: rgb(153, 153, 153) !important; font-family: Benton Medium !important; font-size: 9px !important; text-align: right !important; text-transform: uppercase !important; letter-spacing: 0.3px !important; min-height: 21px;"></div></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Come January, however, two of those Central Valley Republicans won’t be in Congress any more, and — more crucially — McCarthy will lead a minority party, giving him little say over what legislation the House considers. And the Democrat expected to take the reins of the water-policy subcommittee at the House Natural Resources Committee is Rep. Jared Huffman of San Rafael, a fierce opponent of the WIIN Act.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“It does seem like a pretty dramatic change in the congressional landscape,” said Doug Obegi, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco.</p></div></div><div class="ydp1d64d679desktop-nativo ydp1d64d679mobile-yieldmo ydp1d64d679inline-ad" data-inline-ad-count="2" style="margin: 16px 0px 22px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span class="ydp1d64d679hidden-mobile"><div class="ydp1d64d679wrapper ydp1d64d679clearfix ydp1d64d679full ydp1d64d679pb-feature ydp1d64d679pb-layout-item ydp1d64d679pb-f-ads-nativo" data-pb-name="Nativo Ad" data-pb-curated="curated" id="ydp1d64d679f059mk2Ms3aKcr" style="text-align: center; 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cursor: pointer; font-family: Benton Bold; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(255, 84, 67); font-size: 12px; text-transform: uppercase;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a><p style="font-family: Benton Bold; line-height: 16px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><a href="https://jadserve.postrelease.com/trk?ntv_at=3&ntv_ui=e7f6da5e-ba1f-4f1b-8ed1-8049fe78a8ac&ntv_a=x2EEAp9YvAGn8QA&ord=-342740849&ntv_ht=98EbXAA&ntv_tad=16&ntv_r=http://nucific.com/cmd.php?ad=901695" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; color: inherit; font-size: inherit;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">By BHMD <img alt="BHMD" src="https://ntvcld-a.akamaihd.net/image/upload/w_176,h_64,c_fit,f_auto/assets/8938BDCE3AF7475EA8BABE9691C1E41E.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: text-bottom; max-width: 88px; min-height: 32px;" data-inlineimagemanipulating="true" class=""></a></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">California’s House Republicans have maneuvered to exert their power before they lose it, but time is running out: The next two days are likely their last chance to influence state water policy for at least the next two years.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">McCarthy has pushed in recent weeks to include a seven-year extension of the WIIN Act in a government-funding bill that Congress needs to pass by midnight Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown. While it’s possible to add the water-law extension to that budget measure, the window to do so is nearly closed.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">California’s battles over how its water is used and diverted aren’t necessarily between Democrats and Republicans. They have long pitted rural and urban communities against one another, created tension between northern California and southern California and left every politician muttering the old adage that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">With Republicans in control of the House, Senate and White House since 2016, the four Republican congressmen from the Central Valley — McCarthy and Reps. David Valadao, Devin Nunes and Jeff Denham — have been able to pass bills favoring water flows to the region’s farmers and residents.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">None were as substantial as the WIIN Act, which temporarily increased how much water is pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California. It also provided millions of dollars for new dams and other water storage projects, and allowed waivers of environmental studies required by the decades-old Endangered Species Act.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">It took McCarthy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) years to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-water-fight-ticktock-20161212-story.html" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">negotiate the California provisions of the WIIN Act.</a> Feinstein said that while the law doesn’t expire until 2021, proponents needed to take the chance to extend it now.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“This bill took three years and 27 drafts to get done, and I’m convinced it’s the best we can do,” said Feinstein, who broke with most other California Democrats to support the act. “It’s important to extend it now because it is there, it is passed.”</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">On the other side, opposing Democrats from the Delta area have had eight years — since their party lost the House majority in 2010 — to prepare for their chance to craft water policy that they consider best for the state. They vehemently opposed the WIIN Act in 2016.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Huffman, who is expected to become chairman of the House’s Water, Power and Oceans Subcommittee, is a well-known environmental advocate and thorn in California Republicans’ side. His career has focused on water policy, including five years as senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In Congress for the last few years, he has been the California delegation’s most vocal critic of Republicans’ water proposals.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Westlands Water District, which provides water to over 1,000 square miles of farms in Fresno and Kings counties, is bracing for a fight with Huffman. They’ve clashed before.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“I’m sure Representative Huffman will continue his bizarre and inexplicable lifelong crusade against the farmers and farmworkers that grow the food that graces his table and the tables across the nation and the world. And we will be glad to defend what we do,” said Johnny Amaral, Westlands Water District's Deputy General Manager for External Affairs.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Huffman signaled that the WIIN Act will be closely scrutinized before Congress extends it — assuming McCarthy doesn’t win an extension this week.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“The hearings on this issue are long overdue and I’m not sure why the folks who push these things in the final days of [the] session are so afraid of hearings and scrutiny,” he said.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Huffman said he will hold hearings on a comprehensive Western water bill that he has introduced in the past, focusing on reclamation and water recycling infrastructure, refilling groundwater sources and drought response.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“Unfortunately, in the last six years folks have been much more interested in pitting fisherman against farmers and fighting that same old fight,” Huffman said. “Some of the folks who have done business this way for so long are going to have to adjust to more transparency, and that could be threatening to some of the special interests that quite frankly have had the run of the place.”</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Yet Republicans aren’t without leverage. Their party’s continued control of the Senate and the White House means it will be difficult for Democrats to get bills signed into law.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“I don't think any environmental legislation will come out of this Congress because it won’t be able to get out of this Senate,” said Holly Doremus, an environmental law professor at UC Berkeley.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Instead, she said, Democrats can use their House majority to draw attention to issues including climate change that haven’t gotten friendly public hearings in a Republican Congress, Doremus said. “They have an opportunity to reframe some debates,” Doremus added.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">The most noticeable change will be increased oversight of the federal agencies that oversee water and the environment, said Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">“Maybe the best we can hope for is some of the worst retreats from environmental protections will be slowed down,” Gleick said.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Obegi, the Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer, said it’s the bills that likely won’t get a hearing in the next Congress that he’s excited about.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p data-page="2" style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">In a House controlled by Democrats, he expects a dead end for Republican bills to preempt the Endangered Species Act or exempt major construction projects from environmental reviews.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">With Huffman in charge, and Denham and Valadao gone, attention could shift from the needs of the Central Valley. In the past, water policy has united Central Valley politicians across party lines; Rep. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) consistently joins Republican colleagues in backing pro-Valley water legislation. But Denham’s and Valadao’s replacements are Democrats without much experience with local politics or farming.</p></div></div><div data-type="text" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp1d64d679card-content" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px; padding: 24px 24px 0px;"><p style="line-height: 26px; margin: 0px;">Yet Amaral, of the Westlands Water District, said hopefully, “Thankfully, water issues in the Central Valley are not partisan issues, and we look forward to working with all the members of the Central Valley delegation to help secure a reliable water supply for the valley.”</p></div></div><div data-type="interstitial_link" class="ydp1d64d679card ydp1d64d679card-pull-center ydp1d64d679collection-item" style="line-height: 19px; border-top-width: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br class="ydp1d64d679Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span></div></div></body></html>