Do They Have Their Heads Under Water? : Drought: How else to explain legislative trio’s actions on a bill that would curtail water waste in agriculture?

Somebody must have forgotten to tell Congressmen Duncan Hunter, Ron Packard and Bill Lowery about the drought. That seems to be the only explanation for a perplexing series of votes taken in the U.S. House of Representatives on a bill that the Senate will begin considering Tuesday--a bill that also could put gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson on the hot seat as the Senate debate progresses.

Spurred by the drought and ample evidence of rivers of wasted water, urban California legislators, led by U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Pleasant Hill), have been targeting farm areas, especially the Central Valley, for much-needed water reform. Last month, these reformers used HR 2567, the authorizing legislation for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s funding, as the vehicle for new regulations on water use in agricultural areas.

They want to eliminate two practices.

First, these legislators want to cut the so-called “double-subsidy.” Currently, farmers in some agricultural areas are able to buy irrigation water from the Bureau of Reclamation at prices far below the cost of production. That’s one of the two subsidies.

The other is crop subsidies. Crops such as cotton and wheat are subsidized in a variety of ways. In fact, the government is paying some farmers not to grow some of these crops.

But farmers in California and elsewhere have been able to use subsidized water to grow subsidized crops. This is an example of the government working at cross-purposes, one as obvious as paying a subsidy to tobacco farmers while the Department of Health and Human Services tells us that tobacco can kill.

It is also a huge waste of money and water. Marc Reisner, author of “Cadillac Desert,” has estimated that if alfalfa, a low-value surplus crop, were eliminated from California’s farming diet, it would free up enough water for 20 million people and have relatively little impact on the farm economy. Alfalfa farmers could make as much money growing less water-intensive crops.

Lowery (R-San Diego) did not vote on an amendment to cut this double subsidy. Packard (R-Carlsbad) and Hunter (R-Coronado) voted against cutting the double subsidy in contradiction of their usual fiscal conservatism and the interests of their urban constituents. Only 53 other representatives agreed with them.

The other area ripe for farm reform relates to the 960-acre limit. Theoretically, farmers are allowed to irrigate farms of 960 acres or less with subsidized water. (The Imperial Valley is exempt from this restriction.) But many farmers, including corporations such as Exxon, Getty Oil and J. G. Boswell have farms many times that size. Congress set the 960-acre limit in 1982, but the reclamation bureau has allowed the exploitation of this trust loophole.

Powerful Central Valley congressmen such as former majority whip Tony Coelho created a loophole for family trusts. In other words, you could have a farm of, say, 10,000 acres and divide it among members of your family. The Pruett family of the Central Valley and J. G. Boswell created multiple trusts. They were the same farms, of course, but on paper the land was divided.

After Coelho left office due to inquiries about his personal finances, reformers saw an opening. But Hunter, Lowery and Packard tried to close it. They voted for an amendment that would exempt trusts from the limit. The amendment failed.

(U.S. Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) voted to end double subsidies, restrict water to 960-acre farms and close the family trust loophole.)

U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) is expected to approve the reforms. Insiders are not sure how Wilson will vote, but it is important to note that he has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from growers’ political action committees and J. G. Boswell’s PAC.

Water saved by the reform legislation could help ease the water crunch now being felt throughout California. California agriculture uses 85% of all developed water sources in the state. Even a small savings from this pool could be immensely beneficial--if only indirectly--to the semi-arid desert where we live.

It could be used to help recharge depleted ground water reserves in the Central Valley, increase fresh water flows through the dying San Joaquin Delta or, at the very least, grow more of the high-value crops that use less water.

Aides to all three Republican congressmen argued that there would be no guarantee that water saved in the Central Valley would be sent to San Diego, a display of ignorance about the interdependence of California’s water system.

A Packard spokesman said the congressman was fearful of a negative impact on the state’s farm economy.

Aides to Lowery and Hunter argued that the House was not given enough information on which to base its votes since hearings were not held on this specific amendment to this specific bill.

That’s true. But these very same issues have been debated in House committees for over eight years, intensely so in 1982 and 1987. Reams of evidence exist, and the impacts of reform are well known.

Hunter aide John Palafoutas suggested a scary scenario:

“Duncan told me, ‘John, I just went down to the floor and the word was that there hadn’t been hearings, so I voted (the way I did). . . . Nobody seemed to know what was going on.’ ”

Perhaps San Diego voters should educate Hunter, Lowery and Packard and keep an eye on Pete Wilson, a favorite of the growers’ PACs and Boswell. As Packard recently stated when asked about a proposed landfill in his district, “When it comes to something as critical as water, we can’t be too careful.”

DR, STEVE LOPEZ / Los Angeles Times