Fifteen California lawmakers from both parties are up in arms over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest proposal to use the budget process to fast-track the Delta tunnel — a deeply controversial, $20 billion plan to replumb the estuary and funnel more water south.
With the clock ticking for the Legislature to pass a budget bill tackling the state’s $12 billion deficit, Newsom dropped a spending plan last week that would add sweeping changes to permitting, litigation, financing, and eminent domain and land acquisition issues aimed at speeding approval of the massive project…
Environmental advocates say the governor’s proposal is an end run around laws and court decisions that could affect environmental protections beyond the Delta.
“What the governor calls barriers, we call laws,” Jon Rosenfield, science director with the San Francisco Baykeeper, said at the press conference Tuesday.
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