News Highlights - 2-19-07

Legislation to measure aquifer faces opposition
By Hank Shaw, Stockton Record
No one knows how much water Californians pump from the ground, and legislation to find out faces opposition from an agricultural community that fears the knowledge might lead to regulation and rationing. At issue is a fundamental question: When farmers or cities draw water from wells, are they dipping into a resource shared by everyone, or are they exercising a right of landownership? The lakes of water beneath the Central Valley form, collectively, the second-most-pumped aquifer in the nation: So much water has been sucked out of the ground that the land above has sunk in some places.

Some hopeful the peripheral canal's time is finally here
By Hank Shaw, Stockton Record
The Peripheral Canal. Its very name swells arteries and closes minds. For a quarter-century, the idea of a canal linking the Sacramento River to the giant water pumps in Tracy - bypassing the Delta - has been so politically toxic that the phrase "peripheral canal" is never mentioned by its supporters, who have taken to calling it "the bagel," only half in jest. Times have changed.

The hidden hand behind HPV campaign
By the Orange County Register
Everyone knows big companies lobby Congress and state legislatures heavily to rig the game in their favor. But we've rarely seen a more blatant attempt to fill a corporation's coffers by manipulating the political system, or regulate itself a market, than we're seeing in the case of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co, the hidden hand behind a national push to require that teenage girls be immunized against human papilloma virus, HPV, a sexually transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer.

Health nut tougher to crack
By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee
Schwarzenegger's health care approach, however, is catching it from both ideological sides. Democrats want a state-operated "single payer" system or at least some tougher regulation of health care insurers, and complain about costs to middle-income families. Republicans dislike the billions of dollars in taxes on employers and health care providers that the governor wants to call fees and oppose covering illegal immigrants. And, of course, those who would have to cough up the money are not pleased.

Who will help pick the judges?
By STEVE BARIC and KEITH CARLSON, Orange County Register
With this month's resignation of Republican John Davies, Gov. Schwarzenegger must select a new judicial appointments secretary. What makes the timing of this selection so important is the fact that the governor will appoint 50 new Superior Court Judges this spring. His secretary will have a major impact on whether these appointments are conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats.

Let these limits follow Brown to retirement
By George Skelton, Los Angeles Times
Willie Brown has been gone from the Legislature for almost 12 years and he isn't coming back. So maybe some voters out there will realize it's now safe to ease up on term limits.