Can Newsom and Biden end the water war? + Padilla’s basement office + Opening school sports

Good morning and welcome back to the A.M. Alert!

THE 25-YEAR CALIFORNIA WAR

Via Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow...

Shortly after taking office two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to deliver a massive compromise deal on the water rushing through California’s major rivers and the critically-important Delta — and bring lasting peace to the incessant water war between farmers, cities, anglers and environmentalists.

To emphasize his point, Newsom announced at his first State of the State address that he was replacing a key regulator who hadn’t bowed to the peace process. Later, he vetoed a bill that would have obligated California to battle the Trump administration on practically any environmental issue, including Trump’s desire to pump more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the fragile hub of the state’s water delivery system.

Since then? Not much. The governor appears to have so far fallen into the same fate as governors before him with grand ambitions over California’s most precious resource. The modern version of California’s water war is now a quarter-century old, with no clear end in sight.

His top environmental advisors say negotiations continue on the grand bargain, which was first envisioned by Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, at the tail end of his governorship. But they acknowledge that talks have stalled over the past year, largely because of rancorous relations with the federal government — a crucial partner in any California water deal.

With Trump gone and Democrat Joe Biden in the White House, Newsom’s advisors believe conditions are ripe for an agreement.

Making the issue more urgent: California will likely enter another drought this year, which will have profound effects on the water supply above ground and below.

In the meantime, conditions in California’s water world continue to worsen. The Delta is still in crisis. Independent scientists are warning the critically endangered Delta smelt are likely to be extinct by next year, and other native fish species such as salmon and steelhead aren’t too far behind.

Now, environmentalists and fisheries advocates are demanding that the state water board ignore Newsom’s efforts at compromise.

“It is painfully clear that those (settlement) talks have collapsed, and that the process has become a strategy for a delay, rather than a serious effort to produce solutions for the Bay Delta,” Barry Nelson, who advocates on behalf of commercial fishermen, told the water board at a virtual meeting last week.

Check out this report by The Bee’s Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow for more on the water stalemate.

GETTING STARTED IN THE BASEMENT

Sen. Alex Padilla said he’s doing his best to “drink through the fire hose.”

The new California senator took his oath of office two weeks ago amid a pending impeachment trial, a Congress struggling to deal with the riot that drove lawmakers from their chambers, a heavy National Guard presence and a global pandemic.

He now has a temporary office in the basement of a Senate office building, but he doesn’t yet have place to live.

“I’m staying at a temporary place while I look for either a studio or one-bedroom apartment somewhere,” Padilla said in an interview with McClatchy on Monday. “(Democratic Rep.) Zoe Lofgren advised getting a home as close to the Capitol as I can afford.”

He doesn’t have time to spare. He’ll be on the ballot in 2022, giving him just a couple of years to raise money for a Senate campaign and make an impression voters.

Padilla said he’s been leaning on longtime friend Rep. Tony Cárdenas of Los Angeles.

They’ve known each other from almost 30 years. Padilla was Cárdenas’ campaign manager when Cárdenas ran for a California assembly seat in 1996, before Padilla had any political experience, Cárdenas noted.

Now, the two talk “at least once a day,” and “probably to the point that I’m a pain to him,” Cárdenas said with a laugh. Padilla stayed with Cárdenas for a few days when he first came to D.C., Cárdenas said.

Cárdenas said he had a warning for Padilla about trying to work with Republicans.

“I honestly warned him, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the House, they don’t play. They’re not like Republicans in the state Legislature — they play for keeps,” Cárdenas said. “So I told him, ‘When you want to play in a bipartisan way, you have to walk and talk. Don’t put off your plans, don’t be hoodwinked into giving a few weeks to have a meeting, and then another few weeks. It’s a trick, and months are gone before you know it.’”

So far, Padilla isn’t troubling himself on bipartisanship.

He supports abolishing the filibuster, has called for removing some Republican senators for their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and said the Republican proposal on COVID-19 relief was a “nonstarter.”

He also wants to use California as an example for how the U.S. should handle climate change, when Republicans typically use the state’s climate policies as a political punching bag.

McClatchy’s Kate Irby has more from Padilla and Cárdenas in this story today.

LAWMAKERS CALL ON NEWSOM TO LET THE KIDS PLAY

Gov. Newsom is under a lot of pressure to reopen youth sports competitions in the state. Now, several lawmakers, Democrat and Republican, have added their voice to the fray, in a letter urging the governor to issue new guidance allowing for outdoor youth sporting activities and competitions to resume under tightened safety protocols.

“We believe strongly that California’s children are in dire need of the essential elements that youth sporting activities provide, including sportsmanship, exercise, team identity, accountability and enjoyment during this very difficult time in their lives,” the letter reads in part. “As we know, the effects of pandemic isolation on children have resulted in mental health issues including anxiety, depression and increased rates of suicide.”

The effort, led by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, urges the governor to lift the restrictions on competition.

“We believe California coaches will work to follow local, county and state guidelines and create safe environments where youth athletes and coaches work together to keep COVID transmission rates low,” the letter goes on to say.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“My colleague @AsmMarcLevine’s resolution (HR 18) to ban people from the floor of the Assembly is hypocrisy at the highest level. It is sad to me that in the face of the @POTUS’s call for national unity, legislative acts like (HR 18) only serve to further divide us. The election is over. It’s time to move beyond this hypocritical, blatant & dangerous partisan nonsense. I hope this garbage ends up where it belongs in a Government approved landfill.”

- Assemblyman Heath Flora, R-Ripon, via Twitter.

Best of the Bee:

• COVID-19 cratered California’s once-thriving tourism economy. Now, a lawmaker from California’s Wine Country wants the state to spend millions on an effort to revive it, via Andrew Sheeler.

• A California Democrat wants voters across the nation to know an important piece of information: He’s not Josh Hawley, via Kate Irby and Bryan Lowry.

• Correctional officers at a California federal prison are suing the federal government in a bid to force their employer to pay them hazard pay for working during the pandemic, via Kate Irby.