With help from Blanca Begert

DELTA DÉJA VU: California’s longest-running water gambit is reemerging from the shadows.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Water Resources released the final environmental review today for its version of a decadesold proposal to replumb the state’s main water hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta, to move more water from Northern California to Southern California.

The original goal in former Gov. Jerry Brown’s time was to shore up the state’s labyrinthine, crumbling system of levees and canals that delivers water to 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland and make it more resistant to earthquakes — and to try to fix some of the environmental damage caused by sending water every which way within the Delta, the state’s largest estuary.

Climate change is the state’s main argument now: The tunnel would help the state more easily move water based on the booms and busts of California’s weather. For example, during last year’s extreme storms, the project would have captured enough water for 2.3 million people’s annual use, according to the Department of Water Resources.

“This project is the best project we’ve had on the drawing table,” DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in an interview. “The alternative is devastating.”

Opposition from environmental groups and Delta politicians concerned about harm to local habitat and fish have long kept the project in purgatory. Today’s release of 27,300 pages of environmental review is the starting gun for new lawsuits.

But the bigger question, as ever, is where the money will come from.

Brown almost got his two-tunnel project to the starting line, including by wrestling funding from the state’s largest water provider, the Metropolitan Southern District of California, and 17 other water districts to fund the project’s design before Newsom decided upon taking office in 2019 to scale it down from two tunnels to one. The estimated price tag: $16 billion.

There’s a couple new wrinkles this time around. Metropolitan has a different board makeup since its previous promises to the project and faces a budget hole because of conservation (reduced water use means reduced revenue). They’re basically back to square one in terms of deciding whether to pay for the tunnel.

Adel Hagekhalil, Met’s general manager, said the board will consider next year whether to fund Newsom’s version of the project. Support will largely depend on how much water the project can reliably provide and at what cost.

“It has to be looked at with a kind of a wider lens of climate resiliency and how it would fit into our climate adaptation efforts at Metropolitan,” he said in an interview.

Newsom’s public embrace of the project is also relatively new: He has not been as vocal about the project as his predecessor. And when Delta lawmakers accused the governor of using his infrastructure permitting streamlining legislation this summer to fast-track the project, the governor’s office clarified that wasn’t the case and the project’s backers said the legislation wouldn’t have helped much anyway.

But behind-the-scenes, Newsom has been “full-throated” in supporting the Delta conveyance, said Anthony York, the governor’s spokesperson.

“Every opportunity he’s had, he’s been an outspoken supporter,” York said. “He’s been clear on a lot of these projects he wants them to go faster, whether you’re talking about conveyance or Sites or bringing our clean energy projects online.”

Environmental groups haven’t budged much and stand ready to fight in court. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, the executive director of Restore the Delta, said she was disappointed the governor hasn’t yet come up with a final plan to protect flows in the Delta long-term.

“There was hope, when he came in with this administration, that there would be broad consensus building work between environmental groups and water districts and water agencies, and now I would say it’s more polarized than ever,” she said. — CvK

TRIVIA NIGHT: We’re hosting a holiday-themed trivia night in Sacramento! Join POLITICO’s California team on Dec. 12 for an evening of political wonkery and libations at the Fox & Goose Public House on R Street. The games start at 6 p.m. RSVP here.

CALIFORNIA COPYCAT: California’s first-in-the-nation emissions disclosure law is prompting Washington state lawmakers to follow suit.

A bill set to be introduced in Olympia next year and obtained by Jordan today would largely follow SB 253, the bill Newsom signed in October requiring all large public and private companies operating in the state to disclose their Scopes 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

The new measure in Washington would do the same and allow companies to use their California disclosures to satisfy Washington’s requirements if the bill is enacted into law. Sen. Sharon Shewmake (D-Bellingham) will serve as the prime sponsor. Democratic Sen. Joe Nguyen, who chairs the chamber’s environment, energy and technology committee, previously told POLITICO that he expects the measure will be “very seriously considered” and “likely pass.”

It’s the latest development in the evolving global corporate climate disclosure landscape and comes amid a long wait for yet-to-be-finalized federal rules. Lawmakers in New York are also set to consider similar disclosure measures.

But it’s not clear these new efforts will benefit from the same juice as California.

Ceres, a sustainability-focused nonprofit that was a key supporter of California’s law, warned this fall against these other attempts, saying it wanted to get the details right first in California. The Chamber of Commerce has also been worried about a “fragmented approach.”

Washington’s measure largely copies the California timeline despite its later introduction, requiring disclosures starting on Oct. 1, 2026. It also delays Scope 3 reporting requirements by a year, until 2027, which is in line with changes made to California’s law during the legislative process due to a fierce fight over Scope 3.

Some key differences between the California and Washington approaches: Washington’s measure doesn’t outline fines for noncompliance or inaccuracy, and it also makes no mention of a filing fee for companies despite California’s fee requirement. Washington’s bill also leaves the door open for its Department of Ecology to require corporate carbon intensity information down the line, unlike California’s law. — JW

GETTING ON BOARD: If the $3.1 billion that the Biden administration announced Wednesday for California’s high-speed train wasn’t enough proof, state and federal officials lined up Friday to attest the feds are fully on board with the beleaguered rail project.

The project’s prospects haven’t significantly changed since Newsom scaled back plans for a statewide line to just completing a trunk line in the Central Valley by 2030-32 and former President Donald Trump attempted to claw back some $1 billion of federal funding. But the White House is sticking with California, former Gov. Jerry Brown said in a call with reporters.

“They knew there’s problems with this,” Brown said. “We’re gonna spend billions more. That’s what it takes. You want to be number one in the world? You got to spend big bucks.”

“This is happening for three reasons: Nancy Pelosi knows how to push things. Two, [United Brotherhood of Carpenters president] Doug McCarron’s got a lot of muscle with his labor friends. And third, Biden likes trains, and he believes in infrastructure, and he believes that you compete with other nations by building up America,” Brown said.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi also credited labor support. “Any success of a major project like this is about outside mobilization as well as inside maneuvering,” she said on the call. “We made this a priority that was not going away.”

They’ll have to keep pushing, as the Central Valley portion of the line is still facing a $7 billion shortfall. — BB

— The Legislative Analyst’s Office reports that California’s facing a whopping $68 billion budget deficit. That could prompt the state’s deepest spending cuts since the Great Recession.

— Yesterday’s agreement between Culver City and Sentinel Peak Resources means oil and gas wells in the Culver City section of the Inglewood Oil Field will officially be phased out and cleaned up by 2029.

— Biden’s election-year rulemakings could include 50 Clean Air Act rules, better health protections for coal miners and the listing of two California spotted owl populations under the Endangered Species Act.