JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015
Almond Facts 19
The Council represents California's farmer-owned
cooperatives and their members before the state legislature
and regulatory agencies, and participates through a political
action committee (PAC) in legislative races important to
grower and co-op interests. "Our strategy in the 2014
election was to prevent any one party from achieving a
super-majority," Rooney said. "It is not good for one party
to have too much control."
The Council's efforts to elect "business-friendly" and
"moderate" Democrats (since Democrats are very much in
the majority in Sacramento) were highly successful. "We
won every state Senate race we participated in," Rooney
reported, "and all but one of the candidates we supported
in the Assembly races." And their goal of preventing a
super majority was successful in both houses.
Rooney explained that the Council's success is based
on "building relationships with candidates on behalf of
agriculture." The Council works with member co-ops
to encourage their growers to get acquainted with their
elected representatives, invite the candidates to their farms
to inform them about what is involved in producing food
for America, and the impact that government policies and
regulations have on the viability of agriculture. "Those
relationships have a major impact on our ability to get
agriculture's message across regarding legislative and
regulatory issues,” Rooney said.
State Issues Before Us
Potential red fags in 2015 and beyond, according to
Rooney, include:
Farm labor
— "Every year the United Farm Workers
(UFW) brings a bill to increase their control of the farm
labor supply or increase liability on farmers. We expect
something from this session."
Minimum wage
— “an effort to increase the minimum
wage is expected, although it is felt the governor may not
sign it if it passes.”
Groundwater
— legislation to "clean up" the
groundwater bill and better clarify its mechanisms for
establishing groundwater sustainability agencies at the local
level is likely. High- and medium-priority areas in critical
overdraft must have local governing agencies in place
by 2017 and a groundwater management plan by 2020.
Rooney noted that those are "very diffcult deadlines to
meet." If local bodies do not meet the deadlines the State
Water Board is authorized to intervene.
Other issues to watch, according to Rooney:
Farmland
preservation
— "the governor is committed to it as a
priority."
Water storage
— "It was part of the water bond
and the bond is step one in a multi-step process."
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