The Interior Secretary Wants to Enlarge a Dam. An Old Lobbying Client Would Benefit.

For years, the Interior Department resisted proposals to raise the height of its towering Shasta Dam in Northern California... Excluding review of the dam’s downstream effects is “like analyzing the impact of a loaded pistol without looking past the nose of the barrel,” said Jon Rosenfield, a biologist at San Francisco Baykeeper, a conservation organization. The effects of storing more water behind the dam “are major and extend all the way down to San Francisco Bay,” he said.