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I admitlediy have gone to unusual lengths to explain this history of consensus efforts and negotiations 

 leading to the passage of the CVPIA. I have done so because 1 thought it essential to convey to this 

 subcommittee and others the point that the CVPIA is a statute which accommodates the interests of all 

 the involved constituencies. Moreover, EDF, from the very first testimony we wrote on what became 

 the CVPIA, emphasized that the interests of the historic beneficiaries had to be accounted for. 



On the other hand, let me be clear about the current efforts of the CVP contractors to reopen the 

 CVPIA compromise and to attempt to unscramble the "deal" which underlies its passage. This effort 

 not only will undermine an excellent bill in its own right but many other efforts now underway in the 

 state of California to move all the main constituencies in a positive direction oriented toward solving 

 old water problems, not creating new ones. 



Approximately one year ago, for example, my colleague David Yardas convened a group which has 

 come to be known as the CVP Restoration Fund Roundtable. This Roundtabie now consists of a wide 

 variety of groups representing diverse agricultural, urban, business, power, and environmental 

 constituencies. For the last eleven months, even ui the midst of heavy contention over other, closely 

 related, issues, the Roundtable has developed consensus-based recommendations for the funding of 

 CVP restoration-oriented projects and for the management of the Restoration Fund. It also has 

 provided a relatively "safe" forum for the responsible federal agencies (and their state counterparts) to 

 discuss openly their restoration concepts and agendas. 



A second, more widely noted, consensus effort in which EDF also played a significant role, 

 culminated in the celebrated Bay/Delta Accord of December 15, 1994. This agreement settled the 

 water quality standard and Endangered Species Act compliance obligations of the CVP (and the Stale 

 Water Project) for the three-year life of the Accord and sent out all its signers, agencies and 

 stakeholders alike, to build on that agreement in such diverse areas as project operations, state 

 restoration funding, water rights implementation, and long-term Bay/Delta plaiuing. 



Unfortunately, tlie word processors developing the Bay/Delta Accord had hardly stopped whirring and 

 the news media proclamations heralding the Accord had hardly been circulated before the CVP 

 contractors launched their initial efforts to undo the CVPIA, one of Uie Accord's crucial building 

 blocks. In the intervening seven months, this effort, along with the companion effort of some, but 

 fortunately not all, of the same CVP contractors to "take over" the CVP from federal control, has done 

 much to undermine the fragile consensus established in the Bay/Delta Accord. 



Environmental organizations have probably spent at least twice the time and effort to defeat the CVP 

 contractors' initiatives as on the consensus-oriented implementation of the Accord or CVP Restoration 

 Fund. Likewise, interest among agricultural constituencies in consensus-oriented processes has faded 



