After deriding G.O.P. on immigration bill, Boehner shifts his aim to Obama [New York Times]
A
week after mocking his Republican troops over their resistance to an
immigration bill, Speaker John A. Boehner returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday
with a different message: Any movement on an overhaul will depend on a new
White House attitude toward Republicans in Congress. But Republicans and
Democrats, both publicly and privately, suggested that a narrow window for an
immigration bill could open early in the summer — after most of the midterm
Republican primaries — if Congress and President Obama build cooperative good
will on smaller bills in the coming weeks….An increasing number of House
Republicans seem eager to push through an immigration overhaul this year, even
if they cannot quite articulate a clear path forward.
California
water bond fight in flux [Sacramento Bee]
The
drought-driven quest to put a new water bond before California voters has
fluctuated over the last few weeks, marked by new measures appearing, old ones
evaporating and legislators shifting allegiances. Lawmakers have introduced no
fewer than nine water bond proposals, all vying to replace the $11.1 billion
measure that is scheduled for the November ballot but widely believed to have
little chance of passage. Getting a new bond on the ballot would require a two-thirds
vote of the Legislature, which means Senate Democrats would need to find a
consensus with their Republican colleagues. But the ever-shifting dynamics in
the Assembly so far have suggested that there, too, partisan politics will not
be the main divide.
Epic
drought calls for epic solution: backward flow [Bakersfield Californian]
Water
does funny things in California. When there's a drought as bad as the one we're
in now, it does things you wouldn't think were possible. Like flow backwards.
As in south to north. I'm talking about water in the California Aqueduct, which
was specifically built to bring water from the north to the south.
Pesticides
near schools worry advocates [Stockton Record]
California
public health officials recently identified 226 schools in the state's 15
leading agricultural counties in close proximity to heavy pesticide use,
including 19 schools with more than 9,500 students in San Joaquin County. While
the report stressed it "does not measure pesticide exposure in
schoolchildren nor does it attempt to predict health outcomes," a group of
children's health advocates said Tuesday the findings should raise a number of
concerns….But San Joaquin County farm and school officials responded that
pesticide use within a quarter-mile of a school does not mean its students are
exposed to toxins. Gary Caseri, who as interim county agricultural commissioner
regulates pesticide use locally, said the report released by the California Department
of Public Health "leaves a lot to be desired."
Inspectors
search Costa Mesa neighborhood for invasive ant species [Orange County
Register]
State
agricultural inspectors are canvassing a residential neighborhood near the
Santa Ana River this week after finding a colony of an aggressive ant species
in someone’s front yard, the first documented sighting of the pest in its
natural environment in California. The colony of big-headed ants was discovered
in Costa Mesa’s Mesa Verde neighborhood earlier this month by an amateur
entomologist, who collected a sample and sent it to Los Angeles County
officials for identification, said Mike Bennett, Orange County’s agricultural
commissioner….Authorities, though, are wary of these soil-nesting ants because
they’re considered an agricultural pest and one of the world’s most invasive
insects. Not only do they tend to invade homes in large numbers in search of
food and water, but they also displace other ants and eat beneficial insects,
officials say.
How
Vermont plans to defend the nation’s first GMO law [Washington Post]
Expect
two things to happen now that Vermont’s legislature has passed H.112. Any day
now, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) is expected to make history by signing that
bill into law as he has suggested, making his the first state to require
genetically modified food to be labeled as such. Then, maybe not too long after
that, expect the state to be sued over it…. Other states have pursued similar
measures, but Vermont’s law will be the first of its kind. Connecticut and
Maine passed labeling requirements, but with trigger clauses requiring multiple
other states to pass labeling requirements before their own go into effect. At least
25 states have considered such legislation, according to a Monday report on
labeling requirements from the nonprofit Council for Agricultural Science and
Technology. And advocates are hopeful they will get a measure on the Oregon
ballot this year.
Ag
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