Understanding Government

California salmon run

Four years and $150 million into a major study of plans to re-engineer elements of California’s main source of water, a National Science Foundation review found the multi-billion-dollar proposal confused, poorly defined and inadequately researched.  That’s the gist of a piece by Gosia Wozniacka of The Associated Press picked up by the Riverside Press Enterprise.

Power brokers managing California’s fresh water supplies have long sought more access to the state’s two major rivers — the Sacramento and the San Joaquin. But taking too much water from the rivers creates all sorts of problems: (more…)

Waste, corruption and unintended consequences of the nation’s ossified agricultural subsidy programs are a bit like the old story about the emperor’s new clothes — a truth everyone can see, but no one dare speak of as there are simply too many people profiting from the spectacle.

The federal prosecution of a California farmer for allegedly collecting crop insurance for a wheat field he never planted shows how well-intentioned programs have slowly but surely decayed into something very strange over the past seventy or so years. (more…)

Election officials across the nation will soon receive letters from a former California GOP operative turned election watchdog beseeching them to creatively close loopholes created by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, reports Josh Richman of the Oakland Tribune.

Dan Schnur, the former Communications Director for John McCain’s 2000 campaign and now director of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, sent letters to 150 state elections and campaign finance officials around the U.S. yesterday asking them to critically examine the court’s ruling and find wiggle room to enact regulations requiring more disclosure of the origins of campaign money. (more…)

The trade off between safer eggs and the risk of a deadly salmonella outbreak is just pennies a dozen, according to a in-depth look at the industry by P.J. Huffstutter in the Los Angeles Times.

Slightly stricter guidelines in California have helped egg producers avoid bacterial contamination in recent years, but in an industry where the bottom line reigns supreme, tighter rules have caught on in only nine of the 50 states. (more…)

One of the Obama administration’s new rules to restrict the influence of lobbyists is not exactly off to a high-flying start. Rita Beamish of the Associated Press reports that a rule was put in place so if lobbyists met with federal agencies about competitive grant money in the stimulus bill that meeting had to be disclosed. But these meetings are mostly not being disclosed — the Pentagon, for example, has reported that only one lobbyist has met with defense officials this entire year. The Pentagon controls $7.4 billion in stimulus spending.

It would be nice to know what lobbyists are getting access to the government officials who determine what states and contractors get these grants. But even if the disclosure rules get enforced, they are still deeply flawed: only meetings with registered lobbyists have to be reported. A meeting with, say, a state government official or head of a private construction company doesn’t have to go reported. The rule arguably promotes greater public transparency, but it also demonizes lobbyists at the expense of disclosing how access and influence-peddling in Washington actually takes place.-MB