Woodsy is Safe and Sound...For now

Among various victories for Democrats on election day, which we hope will translate to victories for the rest of us as well, one stands out as critical for the preservation of our old friend Woodsy the Owl. I don't know about anyone else, but growing up, I gave a hoot and didn't pollute. I went to the forest a whole lot to camp and hike and fish with my dad, a Republican who doesn't know he's a Democrat.

So it was with particular glee, that I saw incumbent Republican Congressman Richard Pompo (CA-11) go down in flames to Jerry McNerney on Tuesday. Why, you ask, should Pombo's defeat be any more momentous an occasion for me and Woodsy than any of the rest of the Republicans who will be leaving Capitol Hill en masse in January? Well, hear it is:

Farmers in California's mid-central valley have enjoyed enormous water subsidies for almost a century. So huge, in fact, that in certain arid districts they were able to secure enough water cheap enough to grow rice. Fuckin growing rice in a desert, or what has essentially become one, but I digress... The federal government spent a significant amount of time researching the effects of water diversion away from the San Joaquin delta, the San Francisco Bay, and other connected rivers and streams (which span the entire central portion of the state) and decided to fix the attendant problems by dedicating vast quantities of water to flow as it once did naturally through estuaries, the delta, the bay, and out to the sea in order to protect two endagered species: the winter run chinook salmon and the delta smelt.

After loosing in litigation over the loss of water rights due to the diversion, many of the farmers turned to Richard Pombo, whose district (until January, that is, after which it will be McNerney's district. Ha ha!) covers some of the farmland affected by the CVPIA (the legislation which diverted the water. Pombo's response: Gut the Endangered Species Act by removing all references to critical habitat from the act. If successful, Pombo's proposal would have gutted the most powerful piece of environmental legislation in the United States. Where the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act and others leave enough discretion in the hands of the executive that they can essentially be enforced or not at the will of the president, the Endangered Species Act allows no such exceptions. It forces the appropriate cabinet members to set asside areas as critical habitat once an endangered or threatened species has been listed (the listing is very strict and also allows no discretion), therefore subjecting them to heavy regulatory protection, in order to protect Woodsy, you, and me.

So good riddance Pombo, you fuck, and a big middle feather from Woodsy too!