After irrigation districts and the state’s Colorado River negotiators pleaded to keep critical water staff, California’s senators have joined the chorus.
Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff shared deep concerns last week with new appointees at the Interior Department and Bureau of Reclamation. The Trump administration has reportedly fired 10% of Reclamation’s California staff.
Adding to fears of inhibiting operations for the Central Valley Project, the senators leaned on California priorities that may rub against the administration. In the contentious Klamath basin, where Gov. Gavin Newsom led the effort to demolish four dams, Padilla and Schiff pointed to the need to secure water supplies for ecosystem restoration and to support cultural practices for tribes.
Reclamation has rehired five of the employees deemed critical to power plant and pumping operations, reports Politico.
On that note: The Department of Government Efficiency is targeting dozens of federal offices in California for closure. The cuts would impact the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Woodland and the Farm Service Agency in Madera, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Western Growers hopes to preserve Human Foods Program
Western Growers is among a coalition of industry groups urging Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to maintain funding and staffing for FDA’s Human Foods Program, arguing the initiative aligns with RFK’s own Make America Healthy Again platform.
In a letter to the secretary, the group affirmed its commitment to providing a safe national food supply and offered to help identify other ways to save costs associated with FDA programs.
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Court backs NLRB head after Trump’s firing
A federal judge has reinstated the head of the National Labor Relations Board after the president fired her. The decision came less than a week after California Attorney General Rob Bonta stepped in on behalf of former Chair Gwynne Wilcox.
The judge ruled the president acted like a king in usurping the agency’s independence and that the “the framers [of the constitution] made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king—the President included.” The administration is appealing the ruling.
Rice farmer Bryce Lundberg presided over his final NCWA meeting as board chair. He's passing the torch to Roger Cornwell, current chair of Reclamation District 108 and a former walnut grower. Trump eyes Canadian dairy, lumber for reciprocal tariff
President Donald Trump said Friday that he could levy tariffs against Canadian dairy and lumber imports in the coming days, just a day after the president exempted a slate of Canadian goods from new 25% duties.
“They have a tremendously high tariff,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. “They make it impossible for us to sell them lumber or dairy products into Canada.”
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House GOP pushes full-year CR as deadline looms Friday
Lawmakers face a deadline of this Friday to avoid a government shutdown. But the partisan impasse over how to keep departments and agencies funded has yet to be resolved.
President Trump this weekend endorsed a House GOP plan to fund the government through the rest of this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That continuing resolution, released Saturday, would need Democratic support to pass the Senate, and Democrats have come out strongly against the bill.
Keep in mind: The Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Maine’s Susan Collins, said last week she’d like to see a short-term CR to give negotiators time to finish work on FY25 spending bills. In a statement this weekend, she said, “Government shutdowns are inherently a failure to govern effectively and have negative consequences all across government.”
For more on the CR wars, read our Washington Week Ahead.
Vaccines no longer part of bird flu strategy, Rollins says
Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins reportedly says the department’s bird flu strategy no longer includes vaccines for poultry and cows. Following President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress last week, Rollins told Breitbart.com that she had “pulled that off the table” after learning more about the ineffectiveness of vaccines in other countries.
Her comments came after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News that federal health agencies under his purview are opposed to poultry vaccines.
USDA hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the Breitbart report.
On Feb. 14, Zoetis received a conditional license from USDA for a poultry vaccine targeting the H5N2 subtype. However, the company noted that “the decision to vaccinate commercial poultry flocks against [highly pathogenic avian influenza] rests solely with national regulatory authorities in partnership with the poultry industry.”
In addition, on Feb. 25 Elanco and Medgene announced a commercialization agreement for Medgene’s HPAI vaccine in dairy cattle.
Antitrust cases pushed, reports say: On the egg front, meanwhile, numerous news outlets reported that the Justice Department is looking into possible anticompetitive conduct in the egg industry by Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms. The companies are the top two shell egg producers in the nation. The Wall Street Journal and Politico both cited sources with knowledge of the matter.
Final word:
“We are assessing these reports to determine if any further action is warranted.” — Elizabeth Peace, senior public affairs specialist at the Interior Department.
Secretary Doug Burgum has directed Interior staff to review two new national monument designations in California under the Biden administration, reports the Los Angeles Times. Ranchers have opposed the monuments over concerns of restricting grazing rights.
