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Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the delta to improve marine ecology. The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats, and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing....

Last week, FNC’s Sean Hannity traveled to the San Joaquin Valley to report on the man-made drought that’s wreaking havoc on farmers in the name of saving the Delta smelt: {video}...Earlier tonight, GOP South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint tried to turn the water back on. The Senate voted down his amendment, 61-36. Here’s the roll call vote.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And ladies and gentlemen, you are looking live at the thousands of people who have shown up here in the Central Valley of California. They want their farms back, they want their jobs back, and they want the water turned back on. Now, tonight, you are going to hear from some of the politicians who are fighting on behalf of the citizens in this region. We will also talk to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we will even hear from an environmentalist who is actually defending the government's decision that are responsible for drying up this once...

FRESNO, Calif. – Top Obama administration officials are taking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to task for blaming the state's water crisis on federal environmental restrictions. The governor sent a letter to Washington Wednesday demanding a response to "catastrophic impacts" he said were caused by environmental rules that have slashed water deliveries.

A Republican running for a Fresno-area Assembly seat next year is offering a Delta delicacy of sorts at an upcoming fundraiser. An invitation from Brandon Shoemaker, at right, for an Oct. 3 feed promises Delta smelt appetizers with a robust meal featuring barbecued beef.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked President Barack Obama to declare a federal disaster in the drought-stricken heart of the state's agricultural industry. As well as requesting federal support for parched Fresno County, Schwarzenegger also issued a local order allowing for emergency state funds to be made available to the region, part of California's Central Valley. "California's Central Valley is our nation's agricultural engine and unemployment here is devastating the economy and hurting the people of California," said Schwarzenegger. "These are dire circumstances -- no water means no work -- and no work means people cannot...

Republicans Call for Action to Address Man-Made Drought Projections: Up to 35,000 Jobs Lost and 300,000 Acres of Farm Land Unused Ranking Member Doc Hastings, along with Representatives Devin Nunes, Tom McClintock, Kevin McCarthy, Ken Calvert and George Radanovich, hold a press conference to highlight the man-made California drought and policies that provide water for fish (like the three-inch smelt shown above), but not people. WASHINGTON, D.C. - The House Natural Resources Committee held a full committee hearing today on the "The California Drought: Actions by Federal and State agencies to address impacts on lands, fisheries and water users." Witnesses,...

Sean Hannity and Ainsley Earhardt report on California's radical, leftist environmentalism gone awry. California's unemployment rate continues to sky rocket. As many as 80,000 California farming jobs may be lost to protect a 2-inch minnow. Food banks are also packed because the crop yield is down. Ridiculous.

THE TIME MAY be coming, if it is not already here, when decision-makers in Sacramento finally understand that California must store a lot more water in reservoirs or lose much of its agriculture. That message was delivered Monday by federal regulators, who placed severe restrictions on pumping water out of the Delta. The new rules in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit will require more freshwater to be released into the Delta and a lot less water to be pumped out of the estuary. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger ruled that the old pumping permit was highly flawed because...

Reaching back to the laws of ancient Rome, environmentalists sued Monday to cut off Delta water operations and dramatically shake up the long-term balance between economic and environmental needs in the region. If it succeeds, the lawsuit would shift the focus from the worsening conflict between individual species of fish and the amount of water pumped out of the Delta to a comprehensive attempt to balance competing interests. "The only things that are already protected are already endangered," said Michael Jackson, a lawyer for the environmental groups. "But what's happening is the whole bottom is falling out of the ecosystem....

Environmental activists continue to deny Californians more water in the name of saving fish. Last year, responding to an activist lawsuit, a federal judge ordered a 31 percent cut in water pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta – a water supply for 25 million residents. The judge acted in an effort to end the decline of the three-inch-long Delta smelt. Last year, responding to activists, a judge demanded that the Department of Water Resources, which runs the State Water Project in the Delta, get a permit to “take” Delta smelt. The California Fish and Game Commission ordered the state to...

The state Fish and Game Commission made the longfin smelt a candidate for the state's endangered species list Thursday, setting off alarms statewide among both water agencies and construction contractors. The three commissioners voted unanimously to list the tiny fish that ranges from California to Alaska as a candidate species for one year. After a year of study, the fish could be added to the state's list of endangered or threatened species. During that year-long study, however, the commission will limit the amount of water that can be pumped south out of the fish's habitat in the San Francisco Bay-Delta...

SACRAMENTO - The order by a federal judge to reduce pumping by 30% in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta leaves water suppliers who rely on the California Aqueduct, including those in the Antelope Valley, in a bind. Just last week U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger issued his final word regarding the slowdown in pumping operations at the Harvey O. Banks, the starting point of the 444-mile California Aqueduct, core to the State Water Project that furnishes drinking and agricultural water to much of Southern California. Wanger mandated the pumping reduction in order to protect an endangered fish species, the...

A coalition of water users filed a notice Thursday stating its intent to file a lawsuit alleging that power plants are harming fish in the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The four water districts allege that Mirant Corp.'s natural gas-fired power plants in Antioch and Pittsburg are harming species including the delta smelt. The smelt's decline triggered a recent federal court decision that was expected to limit the amount of water available from the delta for people and farmers, including those served by the Belridge, Berrenda Mesa, Lost Hills, and Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa water districts. The plaintiffs say that Mirant's power plants...

The Endangered Species Act has run amok. The latest example is the longfin smelt. Another species nearing extinction? That's what a handful of very rich lawyers disguised as environmentalists and some so-called "expert" from Arizona say. Connect them to a bonehead judge and you, too, could strip away 33 percent of the water that serves 25 million people. They want us to believe that a couple of large pumps are sucking in and killing off a single species of fish from more than 1,000 miles of waterways. I don't buy it. Maybe that's because in their own case they noted...

The Schwarzenegger administration on Wednesday dusted off a failed dam proposal as a way to shore up California water supplies in light of a federal judge's ruling limiting shipments from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But it seemed doubtful that the Democrat-controlled Legislature - long-opposed to new dams - would go along in the waning days of its 2007 session. At a Capitol news conference flanked by city water leaders, farm and building industry representatives, Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said an Aug. 31 ruling by a federal judge in Fresno could cut water flows out of the delta by about a...

Could ruling to protect smelt drive foes to the table to agree on restoring the Delta? For years, anyone watching the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has known that a smack-down was looming over endangered smelt. These tiny fish, a bellwether for the ecosystem, have declined over the last decade while water exports from the Delta have been rising.The Endangered Species Act gives judges wide latitude in curtailing government operations that prompt the extinction of a species. And while the smelt and other Delta fish appear to face a variety of threats -- including invasive species, water pollution and loss of habitat...

Water woes in California awakened some elected officials to the need for a peripheral canal, an alternative to the state's existing water delivery system, where the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumps can be shut down at any time for any number of reasons. Congressman Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, has become a proponent and has called for construction of an alternate water conveyance system - a peripheral canal - that would transport water supplies from Northern California to the southern regions of the state. Their unified stance intensified after the Department of Water Resources voluntarily shut down the pumps for 10 days...

A congressional panel will hold a hearing in Vallejo in two weeks on how to restore the Delta's ailing ecosystem without destabilizing California water supplies. A recent 10-day shutdown of the state's giant Delta water pumps shows that state and federal agencies lack a sustainable plan to meet California's water needs and protect its environment, federal lawmakers said. Court rulings that the state failed to protect the threatened Delta smelt triggered the state pump shutdown from May 31 to June 9. Federal pumps in the Delta also were turned down, but not off, to help protect the smelt. "We have...