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MWD’s Jeff Kightlinger Demystifies State Water Bond Politics

After a tumultuous and difficult year, the State Legislature appeared poised to make history by striking a water deal at the 11th hour of the legislative session last month. With the legislature now in a special session and the many stakeholders on the issue working hard to hammer out the remaining policy and financing obstacles for a comprehensive water policy for the state of California, TPR/MIR was pleased to speak with Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District, a water wholesaler whose willingness to help finance key Delta conveyance facilities is a cornerstone of the progress made in recent weeks and months in the Capitol.

Published Friday March 5, 2010

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Jeff Kightlinger

This article originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of TPR/MIR

The governor had threatened to veto every bill passed by the Legislature if they didn’t produce a water bill this session. The Legislature evidenced progress, and the vetoes were avoided. What now is the status of a hoped-for comprehensive legislative water deal and bond?

A Legislative package to address problems in the Delta and water issues in a comprehensive manner was very close to being finalized by the legislative deadline of Sept. 11. We thought we had a policy bill focused on the Delta that people were comfortable with. Then there were a couple of add-ons—a conservation piece to meet the Governor’s goal of 20 percent by 2020. There was disagreement as to what was and what wasn’t in there. There was also a piece addressing how the State Water Board looks at water rights. That turned out to be fairly contentious and difficult to wrap up.

With the core piece concerning the Delta, however, there was pretty good agreement between water importers and exporters and environmental teams. We had a good working framework by Sept. 11. The chief problem was, it wasn’t done until late on Sept. 10 and that didn’t leave much time to talk about financing or the other controversial pieces. They pulled the plug on it late that night. Since then, the parties have been meeting. There has been stakeholder consultation on various technical pieces, changes to the water rights piece, and changes to the conservation piece. There are a couple of slight changes under discussion on the Delta governance pieces.

The governor threatened to veto all bills absent a water deal, which forced the parties to come together. They made sufficient progress up through Sunday and he felt comfortable signing the bills he ultimately signed. The Governor has called for a Special Session and we are hopeful this will lead to a package that works for everyone.