Boxer Votes Against California Farmers!

God's Warrior

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

Boxer Votes Against California Farmers!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

While the national media was focused on committee consideration of the president's health care takeover, the Senate voted 61-36 tonight to kill an amendment offered by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) that would have restored water to farmers in California's Central Valley that has been shut off to protect a three-inch fish.

Environmentalists have used the Endangered Species Act to shut down the pumps that channel water from Yosemite into the San Joaquin Valley -- a region that produces 13% of the nation's food supply -- to protect a fish called the Delta Smelt. As a result, 40,000 jobs have been lost and the unemployment rate in one city has reached 40%.

In a bizarre turn of events, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) opposed the amendment even though she previously said she believed the biological opinions that created this man-made drought needed to be "reconsidered." She had given folks in California every reason to believe she was working to help them restore water and get folks back to work.

In her remarks on the Senate floor, however, Feinstein said the amendment would "handcuff" the Dept. of Interior from working out a solution. Of course the Dept. opposes the restoration of water to the valley and deserves to be handcuffed but the facts didn't seem to matter. Feinstein was more concerned with the fact that folks from her state would go to another senator for help.

But at least Feinstein openly admitted she was not willing to help the farmers. She's wrong on the issue but she had the guts to say what she really thinks.

This cannot be said of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who never said a word during the entire debate. The normally vocal and fiery Boxer chose to sit those one out. With her sagging poll numbers and growing list of challengers, Boxer tried to duck the issue altogether and let Feinstein take the heat.

But Boxer's vote says everything. She voted to kill an amendment that would have turned the pumps on for a year and restored water to a region that is critical to the state's economy and to the nation's food security.

This was a common sense solution that would have given farmers in the Central Valley the predictable environment they need to plant their crops for next year. But Boxer opposed it and worked to get her Democrat colleagues in the Senate to defeat the measure.

At the following link are two clips from Hannity explaining the issue and the vote.

http://senateconservatives.com/index.php?p=post&id=37