Two environmental groups accused the Trump administration today of illegally reviving a desert water project that is partly owned by a politically connected lobbying firm.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the groups asked a judge to overturn an October decision by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that gave the go-ahead to the controversial Cadiz water pipeline project in California’s Mojave Desert.
The publicly traded Cadiz Inc. hopes to pump billions of gallons of water from an aquifer beneath the Mojave Trails National Monument and pipe it for sale to Southern California cities.
Environmentalists have long opposed the project, saying it would dry up the desert’s water supply and worsen the region’s smog. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, has crusaded to stop the project, and rulings by the Obama administration had left its fate in doubt.
Cadiz is represented by the powerhouse Washington D.C. lobbying firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, which also owns stock in Cadiz. President Donald Trump appointed former Brownstein lobbyist David Bernhardt to the No. 2 post in the Department of the Interior, which supervises the Bureau of Land Management.
At his confirmation hearings in July, Bernhardt said he would abide by the department’s conflict-of-interest rules when it came to making decisions about Cadiz and his long list of other lobbying clients.
Then, in October, Bureau of Land Management officials ruled that Cadiz can build its water pipeline along an old railroad right of way without getting additional permits or undergoing environmental review.
The decision reversed an Obama-era legal analysis that had seemingly stopped the project cold in 2015 by requiring intense additional review.
The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety, two California nonprofits.
In a statement, Adam Keats, lawyer for the Center for Food Safety, called the project “crony capitalism at its worst.”
“So much life relies on this precious desert groundwater, yet under Trump apparently the only thing that matters is how much money you have and who your friends are in government.”
The lawsuit itself didn’t name Bernhardt. In his confirmation hearing, environmentalists called Bernhardt a “walking conflict of interest” because of his lobbying for entities with business before the Interior Department, including Cadiz and California’s powerful Westlands Water District.
Bernhardt continued to work for Westlands well after he told senators he had stopped lobbying because his confirmation was pending.
The Interior Department and Cadiz had no immediate comment. In the past, the company has contended that the pumping operation would have no negative effects on the desert, while providing a needed water supply.
Lance Williams can be reached at lwilliams@revealnews.org. Follow him on Twitter: @LanceWCIR.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Republish Our Content
Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work with as many people as possible. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:
-
Do not change the story. Do not edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
-
Please credit us early in the coverage. Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Will Evans, Reveal.
-
If republishing our stories, please also include this language at the end of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.”
-
Include all links from the story, and please link to us at https://www.revealnews.org.
PHOTOS
-
You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared and do not change them.
-
If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Digital Engagement Producer Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from Getty and The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.
DATA
-
If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Data Editor Soo Oh, soh@revealnews.org.
IN GENERAL
-
We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If you plan to republish our content, you must notify us republish@revealnews.org or email Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.
-
Please note, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org.