Members of Congress and the California legislature have sent a letter urging Lester Snow and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to open up the closed door talks now underway among “Delta Principals.”
As we reported in our last newsletter, a small group of unidentified people has been meeting to work out a deal for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
The letter includes a series of questions for Snow and Salazar, including:
- What is the role and objectives of the Delta Principals Group? Is this a new group or a separate new process?
- Who are the principals?
- How were the principals identified and what criteria used in determining which groups/representatives would be allowed to participate?
- Are the proposals being discussed based on the best available science?
Signing the letter were Senator Lois Wolk, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and Congressional Representatives John Garamendi, Doris Matsui, Jerry McNerney, George Miller and Mike Thompson, who officially requested that the meetings be more inclusive and transparent. State Senator Mark DeSaulnier and State Assembly Members Bill Berryhill, Joan Buchanan, Alyson Huber, Tom Torlakson and Mariko Yamada also signed the letter.
Dan Bacher reports in his blog that Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition thinks requests for inclusion amount to a “temper tantrum.” He accuses Delta representatives of holding fast “to a ‘me-first’ attitude at the expense of others.”
We’d say that Mike Wade has an irony deficiency.
