Brown touts decades of water policy experience
By Melanie Mason, Los Angeles Times
Gov. Jerry Brown pitched his decades-long political career as an asset in tackling California’s vexing water problems in a speech at Stanford University on Monday, portraying this year’s major water legislation as a continuation of his first gubernatorial term nearly 40 years ago.
Amid the state’s crippling drought, water was a top policy priority this year, including the crafting of a $7.5 billion water bond now on the ballot as Proposition 1. Brown and lawmakers also pushed through the first statewide groundwater regulation law in California’s history, an accomplishment Brown called “quite heroic.”
Noting he began work on groundwater back in 1978, Brown said “this is not something for a flash in the pan. This is not just for a one-term governor. This is really the work of a four-term governor.”
Brown laid out a number of steps of his administration’s Water Action Plan, which includes water conservation, ecosystem restoration and fixing the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.