GOP leaders say more time needed for CA water deal

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Republican legislative leaders said there was little hope they could craft a water deal Sunday, despite daylong negotiations that dragged into the night.

Democratic leaders presented written responses to Republicans’ concerns about their water proposal late Sunday, providing answers that Assembly Minority Leader Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, said had been lacking for weeks.

Blakeslee called Democrats’ document a “good first step” as leaders wrapped up six consecutive days of water talks amid months of discussions.

“I expect we have much more work to be done. But there’s at least a hope that serious negotiations have now begun,” Blakeslee said after 11 hours of intermittent discussions.

Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Temecula, said the same issues have been dividing the four leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for days: water conservation and balancing water rights with monitoring how property owners pump groundwater. They barely had time Sunday to discuss how to pay for water system improvements.

Democratic leaders were more upbeat.

“We’re making progress,” said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass of Los Angeles.

“We’re trying to get to the framework” of an agreement, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said late Sunday. “No guarantees, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction.”

Even if the leaders reach a compromise, they said it was unclear how their rank-and-file members would react to details from the secret negotiations. Passing a water deal that includes a bond needs a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, requiring at least some support from Republicans.

Schwarzenegger had delayed acting on about 700 bills from this summer’s legislative session to pressure lawmakers to improve California’s deteriorating and inadequate water system. He faced a midnight Sunday deadline to sign or veto the bills.

Schwarzenegger was reserving decisions on roughly half the bills until he gauged the day’s progress from the water talks, said spokesman Aaron McLear.

He vetoed about half and signed about half of the remaining bills, acting on those measures as he would in any other year, McLear said. The ones delayed until the last minute were chosen because the governor was less certain of his decision, McLear said.

The governor is pushing for more reservoirs and a controversial canal to improve a water storage and conveyance system mostly built in the 1960s.

“I’m fighting to rebuild our crumbling water system,” Schwarzenegger said in his weekly radio address Saturday, repeating his upbeat speech from a water rally Friday. “Water is jobs for California, water is food, water is our future, water is our economy.”

The governor periodically schmoozed the four legislative leaders in his smoking tent in a Capital courtyard outside his office, leaving most staff members behind in a neighboring conference room. The tent was set up so Schwarzenegger and his guests could smoke his favorite cigars without violating California’s strict laws on smoking in public buildings.

“It’s just a little break from being in a stuffy conference room,” McLear said.

Also Sunday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Michael Connor were in California meeting with farmers along the massive federal Central Valley water project that sends Northern California water to farmers in dry areas of the state that supply much of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.

The two federal leaders were also meeting with Latino farmworkers to discuss California’s three-year drought and other water issues. The predicament will only worsen as the state’s population grows.