Water Bill Cleared for Vote in Senate : Legislation: Landmark measure that would reform the Central Valley Project may face presidential veto. Compromise by Seymour puts alternative plan into play.

After initially blocking any legislation from moving through the Senate chamber Tuesday, Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) negotiated a late-night agreement clearing the way for Congress to send landmark water legislation to President Bush’s desk that would reform the Central Valley Project for the first time in four decades.

The Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on a House-approved omnibus water package containing dozens of reclamation projects for 17 Western states. The bill includes the “most sweeping reform of California water policy in a half century,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), chairman of the Interior Committee.

But Seymour won a concession that calls for the Senate to pass an alternative Central Valley Project measure today that would supersede the House Central Valley Project provisions and largely preserve the agriculture industry’s monopoly on federal water. For this alternative proposal to take effect, however, the California senator will have to persuade House members, many of whom have left Washington for the year, to take up his measure before adjournment this week.

Seymour is counting on Bush to veto the entire water package unless the House adopts his Central Valley Project proposal over the Miller legislation passed by the House on Tuesday.

“The House now has to decide between a threatened veto or coming back and approving the (Seymour bill),” Seymour spokeswoman Lisa Gagnon said.

Faced with the likelihood of the Senate approving the House-passed Central Valley Project reform, which favors the environment and cities over farmers, Seymour began a one-man filibuster Tuesday by requesting that Senate clerks read the entire contents of the 396-page package. The reading took more than six hours before a compromise was struck.

The House set the stage for a showdown with California’s junior senator shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday by passing a compromise measure on a voice vote that could reallocate millions of acre-feet of water generated by the federal Central Valley Project, primarily for the benefit of the environment and cities.

Criticizing Seymour for being an obstructionist, Miller said, “Congress made a conscious decision on a bipartisan basis to change the Central Valley Project. The choice now is between change and no change.”

But two prominent members of the Bush Administration--Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Edward R. Madigan--have raised objections to the bill and may recommend a presidential veto.

Seymour, acting on behalf of the California agriculture community, had vowed to do everything in his power to stop the legislation. He called the House-Senate conference committee measure “a poison pill for California jobs that we will not swallow.”

The most controversial part of the massive water legislation approved by the House would drastically alter water deliveries from the Central Valley Project, which controls 20% of California’s developed water through 20 dams and more than 500 miles of diversion canals, reservoirs, pumps and other facilities. The project supplies water for about one-third of the state’s 9 million acres of irrigated farmland through a series of federally subsidized contracts signed 40 years ago.

The Central Valley Project Improvement Act, negotiated last weekend between House and Senate conferees, would make saving threatened fish and wildlife a top priority. It calls for devoting 800,000 acre-feet of water to meet the project’s new environmental purposes and establishing a $50-million annual fund to finance fish and wildlife restoration activities.

The legislation would also enable urban water agencies such as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to purchase water through the Central Valley Project from willing sellers. Such transfers are prohibited under federal law.

Carl Boronkay, MWD general manager, predicted that the House-approved bill would provide large amounts of water to California cities.

“If managed properly, California has ample water supplies to take care of the reasonable needs of cities, farms and the environment for some time to come. Passage of this bill is a crucial element of good water supply management,” Boronkay said.

Most of California’s largest businesses also support water transfers, said James R. Harvey, chairman of Transamerica Corp. and a member of the California Business Roundtable.

“We think this is a major step forward,” Harvey said. “There is lots of water. Let the free market determine where the water goes rather than some politician.”

Agriculture lobbyists contend that the House-approved bill would destroy California family farms, particularly during years of prolonged drought. They cite a Department of Interior analysis of the legislation that found no Central Valley Project water would have been delivered to irrigators over the last three years.

“The Central Valley’s existence is tied to water,” said Phil Larson, a farmer in the Fresno County city of Kerman. “No water means no farms, no jobs and no future.”

The House-approved legislation also would:

* End the practice of automatically renewing highly subsidized, fixed 40-year contracts for Central Valley irrigators. Current contractors would be guaranteed only one additional contract of 25 years.

* Replace fixed prices for water subsidies with a three-tier pricing system that discourages heavy volume use and encourages conservation.

* Reduce the amount of all new water contracts to meet other project purposes, such as providing relief for threatened fish and wildlife. For the first time, the Central Valley Project would be directed to restore fish and wildlife habitat destroyed by project operations and set a goal of doubling historic fish levels.

By comparison, the Seymour measure would create a $20-million restoration fund and allow water transfers subject to California state law. The Seymour provision also would require mandatory 25-year contract renewals for all Central Valley Project users and provide more favorable pricing conditions for agriculture.

Despite its support by many state interests, the House-approved legislation is strongly opposed by California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Seymour, the former state legislator Wilson appointed in 1990 to replace him in the Senate. Other opponents include Central Valley members of the California congressional delegation and Republican House members.

Rep. Calvin Dooley (D-Visalia) said he and other California lawmakers succeeded over the last week in delaying Tuesday’s House vote to give Seymour a better opportunity to kill the measure in the Senate.

When the Senate moved to take up the water package early Tuesday afternoon, Seymour interceded and asked for a reading of the complete bill. He had remained on the floor continuously since Monday evening assisting Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) in his efforts to filibuster the tax bill.

Wilson, who succeeded in blocking a Central Valley Project reform measure in the Senate two years ago, issued a stinging letter attacking the bill to his former colleagues in the Congress last weekend.

“As California struggles to deal with almost 10% unemployment and the loss of over 700,000 jobs during the current recession, it is simply inexcusable to cripple our agricultural sector by the cavalier passage of this measure.”

Seymour, who is running against Democrat Dianne Feinstein for one of two California Senate seats up for election this year, has been a persistent advocate for Central Valley irrigators who want to protect their continued supply of federally subsidized water. Seymour raised $563,976 in campaign contributions from agricultural donors and Central Valley residents through June 30, according to a Times study.

“Seymour is just repaying his campaign contributors,” Miller said. “That is all that is going on here. The campaign contributors have become more important to him than the future of California. That is what Gov. Wilson is doing.

“The bottom line is, every year they delay this it is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the agricultural industry. That is why those water contracts are so valuable.”

Seymour wrote an initial bill passed by the Senate this year that allowed farm-to-city water transfers and more limited environmental protection while protecting long-term contracts for irrigators and farming jobs. The measure was gutted in conference committee by Miller and Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate water and power subcommittee.

“My priorities have always been people and jobs first and animals and plants second,” Seymour said. “What the Miller-Bradley CVP bill does is place plants and animals above people and jobs.”