Wilson Defends His Killing of Water Bill

Republican Sen. Pete Wilson on Monday defended as a matter of “fairness” his move to kill a $1.5-billion water bill that would have barred large agribusiness concerns from obtaining federally subsidized water meant for smaller farmers.

The bill had passed the House, but died shortly before the Senate’s weekend adjournment despite a last-ditch attempt at compromise between the bill’s proponent, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) and Wilson, who had placed a hold on the bill. A Senate prerogative, the hold effectively killed the bill.

Miller said he offered Wilson several concessions shortly before the bill died, but Wilson refused to accept any form of water reclamation reform.

“We came up with three different compromise proposals but Wilson refused to negotiate,” said Miller, who charged that Wilson followed the wishes of “big corporate farmers” who support his gubernatorial bid.

Wilson, however, said at a press conference here that he was acting on behalf of small farmers who need subsidies, and not in favor of large agribusinesses.

At issue were federal subsidies for irrigated water, which were meant to help the owners of smaller farms. But under a loophole in existing law, large farming operations have been able to qualify for the subsidies by dividing their properties into partnerships and trusts of less than 960 acres each.

Wilson said that closing the loophole would have prevented smaller farmers from banding together for efficiency’s sake into operations of more than 960 acres.

“In many instances, (small farmers) could not farm economically if they were denied their entitlement of reclamation water,” he said.

“If our purpose to engage in social engineering denies those people their present legal rights, I think that’s unfair and what it will lead to is the loss of a number of small family farmers,” he said.

Wilson, who accused Miller of using the subsidy issue as a political ploy to damage his campaign, said it was the Martinez Democrat who refused to negotiate in good faith.

Calling the current law a “rip-off,” Miller persuaded the House to endorse a proposal that would have required “multiple-unit” farming operations to dissolve their trusts in order to continue receiving federally subsidized water. Another reform would have phased out double subsidies for farmers receving both cheap irrigation water and federal payments for surplus crops, for which the government has an acreage reduction program.

Wilson acknowledged that abuses exist, and on Monday said the Bureau of Reclamation “has been guilty of very bad judgment.”

“They should not have permitted those things to occur, to pass muster,” he said.

Western senators tried to preserve other parts of the water bill either by getting Wilson to drop his objection to the subsidy reform provision or persuading Miller to sever the provision and let the rest of the projects go through. But each stuck to his position.

Included in the legislation that died were federal programs that would partially finance a waste water treatment project at Los Angeles’ Hyperion reclamation plant.

Decker reported from Concord and Ross from Washington, D.C.