Calif. water politics complicate Brown's decisions


 SACRAMENTO, Calif.
(AP) -As California
struggles to cope with its
historic drought, Gov. Jerry
Brown is facing increasing
pressure to tackle long-
standing problems in the
state's water storage and
delivery systems at a time
when the politics of the
issue have never been
more tangled.
 For Brown, the drought
presents both opportunity
and risk for a governor
facing re-election who
also was in office during
California's last major
drought in the mid-1970s.
 It comes as he is pitch-
ing a costly and conten-
tious proposal to drill two
35-mile-long, freeway-size
water tunnels beneath the
Northern California delta,
a project that will cost
at least $25 billion and
is opposed by environ-
mentalists who say it
will all but destroy the
imperiled estuary and has
divided the agricultural
community.
 The governor also faces
mounting pressure from


the state Legislature to ad-
dress an $11 billion water
bond measure that law-
makers from both parties
agree will require a major
overhaul before it goes to
voters in November.
 Few things are more
politically divisive in
California than water.
Who gets it, who pays for
it, where and how it is
captured and transported
have proven to be political
minefields for California
governors for nearly a
century.
 The state's current
crisis has gained national
attention through pictures
of reservoirs turned to
mudflats, rivers slowed
to a trickle and farmers
ripping out orchards and
fallowing their fields. The
two Republicans in the
race to contest Brown's
expected re-election
campaign are intensifying
their criticism and say his
administration has not
done enough to improve
California's water supply
or help the hardest hit
communities.


 Yet policymakers, water
agencies, farmers and
worried local government
officials hope the crisis will
produce enough urgency
to yield a rare political
compromise. Brown told
reporters in Tulare last
week that "if anybody can
get it done, I can get it
done."
 Now may be the time,
said Jay Lund, director of
the Center forWatershed
Sciences at the University
of California, Davis.
 "Floods and droughts
and lawsuits always bring
attention to the water
issues," Lund said. "You
rarely see big strategic
changes in water manage-
ment without that sort of
motivation and attention
there."
 If the motivation has ar-
rived, so have the politics.
 Last month, the Brown
administration announced
that for the first time it will
deny any water allocations
to thousands of Central
Valley farmers and
communities.
 In explaining the


severity of the situation,
Chuck Bonham, di-
rector of the California
Department of Fish and
Wildlife, urged people
"to take a deep breath,
put down the arguments
we've all had in the past
and come together as
Californians."
 "This is not about pick-
ing between delta smelt
and long fin smelt and
chinook salmon, and it's
not about picking between
fish and farms or people
and the environment," he
said.
 But those arguments are
ever-present in California
water conflicts, as they are
this year.
 Republicans in Congress
last month pushed
through legislation to
override federal limits on
pumping water from the
delta and stop efforts to
restore the San Joaquin
River, which Rep. David
Valadao, R-Hanford, said
was a "commitment to
putting California families
over fish."
 Brown called the


AP PHOTO


In this Jan. 9, 2014 file photo a visitor to Folsom Lake, Calif.,
walks his dog down a boat ramp that is now several hundred
yards away from the waters edge. Gov. Jerry Brown was
governor the last time California had a drought of epic propor-
tions, in 1975-76 and now is pushing a controversial $25 billion
plan to build twin tunnels to ship water from the Sacramen-
to-San Joaquin River Delta to farmland and cities farther south.


legislation an "unwelcome
and divisive intrusion"
that would "re-open old
water wounds." It is not
expected to clear the
Democratic-controlled
U.S. Senate, but it did
prompt Sens. Barbara
Boxer and Dianne
Feinstein, Democrats from
California, to respond with


a proposed $300 million
drought-relief package.
 President Barack Obama
also paid his first visit to
Fresno on Friday to ad-
dress the drought, but it's
not yet clear whether his
administration will push
for a long-term solution
such as building more
reservoirs.


US drug policy fuels push for legal pot worldwide


 (AP) In a former
colonial mansion in
Jamaica, politicians huddle
to discuss trying to ease
marijuana laws in the land
of the late reggae musician
and cannabis evangelist
Bob Marley. In Morocco,
one of the world's top pro-
ducers of the concentrated
pot known as hashish, two
leading political parties
want to legalize its culti-
vation, at least for medical
and industrial use.
 And in Mexico City, the
vast metropolis of a country
ravaged by horrific cartel
bloodshed, lawmakers have
proposed a brand new plan
to let stores sell the drug.
 From the Americas to
Europe to North Africa and
beyond, the marijuana
legalization movement is
gaining unprecedented
traction a nod to suc-
cessful efforts in Colorado,
Washington state and the
small South American na-
tion of Uruguay, which in
December became the first
country to approve nation-
wide pot legalization.
 Leaders long weary of
the drug war's violence
and futility have been
emboldened by changes
in U.S. policy, even in the
face of opposition from
their own conservative
populations. Some are ea-
ger to try an approach that
focuses on public health
instead of prohibition,


and some see a poten-
tially lucrative industry in
cannabis regulation.
 "A number of countries
are saying, 'We've been
curious about this, but
we didn't think we could
go this route,'" said Sam
Kamin, a University of
Denver law professor who
helped write Colorado's
marijuana regulations.
"It's harder for the U.S. to
look at other countries
and say, 'You can't legalize,
you can't decriminalize,'
because it's going on here."
 That's due largely to
a White House that's
more open to drug war
alternatives.
 U.S. President Barack
Obama recently told The
New Yorker magazine that
he considers marijuana
less dangerous to con-
sumers than alcohol, and
said it's important that the
legalization experiments in
Washington and Colorado
go forward, especially be-
cause blacks are arrested
for the drug at a greater
rate than whites, despite
similar levels of use.
 His administration
also has criticized drug
war-driven incarceration
rates in the U.S. and
announced that it will
let banks do business
with licensed marijuana
operations, which have
largely been cash-only
because federal law forbids


This Oct. 23, 2013, file photo shows Mexican lawmaker Fernando
Belaunzaran taking a photo with his phone while touring a legal
marijuana grow room, at River Rock dispensary, in Denver.


financial institutions from
processing pot-related
transactions.
 Such actions underscore
how the official U.S.
position has changed in
recent years. In 2009, the
U.S. Department of Justice
announced it wouldn't
target medical marijuana
patients. In August, the
agency said it wouldn't
interfere with the laws in
Colorado and Washington,
which regulate the growth
and sale of taxed pot for
recreational use.
 Government officials
and activists worldwide
have taken note of the
more open stance. Also
not lost on them was the
Obama administration's
public silence before
votes in both states and in
Uruguay.


 It all creates a "sense
that the U.S. is no longer
quite the drug war-ob-
sessed government it was"
and that other nations
have some political space
to explore reform, said
Ethan Nadelmann, head of
the nonprofit Drug Policy
Alliance, a pro-legalization
group based in NewYork.
 Anxiety over U.S. repri-
sals has previously doused
reform efforts in Jamaica,
including a 2001 attempt
to approve private use of
marijuana by adults. Given
America's evolution, "the
discussion has changed,"
said Delano Seiveright,
director of Ganja Law
Reform Coalition-Jamaica.
 Last summer eight
lawmakers, evenly split
between the ruling
People's National Party


Obama signs debt ceiling measure into law


 RANCHO MIRAGE,
Calif. (AP) President
Barack Obama on
Saturday signed separate
measures into law to lift
the federal debt limit
and restore benefits that
had been cut for younger
military retirees.
 Obama signed the bills
during a weekend golf
vacation in Southern
California.
 The debt limit measure
allows the government
to borrow money to pay
its bills, such as Social
Security benefits and
federal salaries. Failure
to pass the measure,
which the Senate passed
67-31 earlier this week
and sent to Obama for
his signature, most likely
would have sent the stock
market into a nosedive.
 The Treasury
Department is now free to
borrow regularly through
March 15, 2015, meaning
lawmakers won't have to
revisit the issue until a
new Congress is sworn
in after the November
elections.


 Separate legislation
passed in December
would have held annual
cost-of-living increases
for veterans age 62 and
younger to 1 percentage
point below the rate of
inflation, beginning in
2015. The measure was
designed to hold the
line on the soaring cost
of government benefit
programs, which have
largely escaped trillions of
dollars in deficit cuts over
the past three years.
 The cuts were enacted
less than two months ago,
with a projected savings
to the government of
$7 billion over a decade.
Veterans groups and
some lawmakers said the
cut was a mistake, and
they began campaigning
to have the benefits
restored.
 The pensions go to
veterans who retire
after 20 years of service,
regardless of their age.
Nearly 2 million retirees
currently are eligible,
including about 840,000
under age 62, according


to the Pentagon.
 For a sergeant first
class who leaves the
service at age 42 after two
decades, the bill passed
in December would have
meant an estimated
$72,000 in reduced
pension payments.
 Quick action by law-
makers on this year's
debt limit bill stands in
contrast to lengthy show-
downs in 2012 and last
fall, when Republicans
sought to use the must-
pass bill as leverage to
win concessions from
Obama. They succeeded
in 2011, winning about
$2 trillion in spending
cuts. But Obama has been
unwilling to negotiate
over the debt limit since
his re-election in 2012.
 The bill he signed
Saturday is the third
consecutive debt measure
to pass Congress without
concessions from the
White House.
 Republicans also have
been less confrontational
since a 16-day partial
government shutdown


last October sent the
party's poll numbers
skidding.
 Both bills were
flown out to Obama in
California late Friday
night, aWhite House aide
said.


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and the opposition
Jamaica Labor Party, met
with Nadelmann and local
cannabis crusaders at a
luxury hotel in Kingston's
financial district and
discussed next steps,
including a near-term
effort to decriminalize pot
possession.
 Officials are concerned
about the roughly 300
young men each week
who get criminal records
for possessing small
amounts of "ganja."
Others in the debt-shack-
led nation worry about
losing out on tourism
dollars: For many, weed
is synonymous with
Marley's home country,
where it has long been
used as a medicinal herb
by families, including as
a cold remedy, and as a
spiritual sacrament by
Rastafarians.
 Influential politicians
are increasingly taking
up the idea of loosening
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health minister recently
said he was "fully on
board" with medical
marijuana.
 "The cooperation on
this issue far outweighs
what I've seen before,"
Seiveright said. "Both sides
are in agreement with the
need to move forward."
 In Morocco, lawmak-
ers have been inspired
by the experiments in
Washington, Colorado and
Uruguay to push forward
their longstanding desire
to allow cannabis to be
grown for medical and
industrial uses. They say
such a law would help
small farmers who survive
on the crop but live at the
mercy of drug lords and
police attempts to eradi-
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