FEATURE ARTICLE

December 2008

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2008 California Water Legislation—A Tale of Stalled Bills Poised to Drive the Legislative Agenda in 2009

At the end of the 2008 legislative session, a lot of the focus for water issues was on bond money: spending it, and raising more of it. On September 30, Governor Schwarzenegger signed SBX2 1 (D-Perata) into law, appropriating $820,973,000 in existing bond funds for a broad array of water supply reliability, emergency preparedness, and water quality projects, including stormwater flood management project grants, projects to prevent or reduce the contamination of groundwater, and integrated regional water management activities. U.S. Senator Feinstein and Governor Schwarzenegger were promoting the Safe, Clean, Reliable, Drinking Water Supply Act of 2008, which would provide $9.4 billion for increased water storage, improved water conveyance, restoration of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) ecosystem, and increased conservation.