Raley, B

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As Assistant Secretary of Water and Science, Department of the Interior, Bennett William Raley manages and directs programs supporting the development and implementation of national water and mineral policies and provides program oversight and guidance for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Reclamation.

Born October 3, 1956, Raley has primarily worked as a lawyer defending property and water rights. Representing irrigators, water districts, and property-rights groups, he has stressed the importance of valuing property rights over environmental concerns, opposing re-authorization of the Clean Water Act and working to weaken and repeal the Endangered Species Act.

Following his confirmation, Raley stated in a media release "I look forward [as Assistant Secretary of Water and Science] to … honor[ing] our longstanding commitment of leaving the nation's land and water in better condition for future generations to enjoy." [1]

Raley then proceeded to oversee a “major shift in water policy, away from environmental protection and toward property owners' rights. In 2002, he allotted water from Oregon's Klamath River to irrigators rather than to endangered fish, leading to a massive salmon die-off.” [2]

• Partner, Davis, Graham & Stubbs, 1990-1991
• Staff Counsel to U.S. Senator Hank Brown, 1991-1992
• President of Trout & Raley PC, Denver, CO
• National Water Resources Association(The National Water Resources Association is a member of the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC), formed by utility, logging, development, and mining companies)
• Member of the Board of Litigation at Mountain States Legal Foundation (described as the “litigating arm of the Wise Use movement”)
• Member of Attorney Network, Defenders of Property Rights (a legal foundation dedicated entirely to property rights matters)
• Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights for the first 100 days of the 104th Congress 1995
• Co-Chair of the Federal Water Rights Task Force established pursuant to the 1996 Farm Bill.

Campaign contributions include $500 to George W. Bush in 2000 and $250 to Gale Norton in 1996.

The One Hundred Fourth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1995 to January 3, 1997, during the third and fourth years of Bill Clinton's presidency.

External links

Environmental Working Group's CLEAR website, analysis of Bennett William Raley, June 2001

"Behind the Curtain: George W. Bush's stealth assault on environmental rules is being carried out by a cadre of appointed bureaucrats with strong ties to the very industries they are now supposed to regulate," in "The UnGreening of America," Mother Jones, September/October 2003

"Assistant Secretary - Water and Science" Department of the Interior job description

Office of the Secretary US Department of Interior, "Secretary Norton Praises U.S. Senate Confirmation of Bennett Raley as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science", Media Release, July 13, 2001.

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• Environmental Working Group's CLEAR website, analysis of Bennett William Raley, June 2001
• "Behind the Curtain: George W. Bush's stealth assault on environmental rules is being carried out by a cadre of appointed bureaucrats with strong ties to the very industries they are now supposed to regulate," in "The UnGreening of America," Mother Jones, September/October 2003
• "Assistant Secretary - Water and Science" Department of the Interior job description
• Office of the Secretary US Department of Interior, "Secretary Norton Praises U.S. Senate Confirmation of Bennett Raley as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science", Media Release, July 13, 2001.

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When George W. Bush came to office, the growers who had filed the lawsuit a decade earlier began pushing it again. A career Justice Department attorney, Yoshinori H.T. Himel, representing the Department of Interior and the Bureau in the grower suit, filed a motion in August of 2002 to get it dismissed. Himel pointed out that Westlands, in the 1985 agreement, had agreed “to design, install, and operate alternative means for disposal of drain water in an efficient and environmentally sound manner.” Himel then noted that the 1985 Agreement “placed the obligation on Westlands “to design, install and operate alternative means for disposal of drain water from Westlands.” Himel said alternative means included evaporation ponds, salt tolerant crops and recycling. While Himel acknowledged it could be argued the 1985 agreement may not have required Westlands to assume long-term responsibility for drainage for the entire San Luis Unit he said Westlands assumed, at the minimum, responsibility for solving the drainage problems of the 49,000 acres that had been draining to Kesterson. Himel added “One thing the Agreement did alter, however, was Westlands’ obligation to indemnify the United States for, among other things, ‘losses, damages, claims and liabilities’ arising from Westlands’ performance or non-performance of the Agreement. The language ‘losses, damages, claims and liabilities’ indicates money claims, such as Plaintiffs’ money claims in this lawsuit . . . Westlands thus undertook at a minimum to indemnify the United States for lawsuits by those who might be dissatisfied with the results of Westlands’ ‘alternative means’ for drainage.” 

A federal court rejected this argument but critical issues of apportionment of liability for the drainage mess remained. Of course, we will never know what would have happened had the apportionment of fault issues been decided by a jury or a judge. Bennett Raley, a Colorado attorney who represented irrigation districts and was appointed Assistant Secretary for Water and Science by his Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2001, made sure that a trial on the merits did not happen. Raley, undoubtedly with the support of Norton and the White House, undercut Himel and other Justice Department career attorneys defending the suit, agreeing to a $139 million settlement in December of 2002, with most of the money coming from U.S. taxpayers, not Westlands. 

Raley, of course, gained fame in 2002 for allotting water from Oregon’s Klamath River to irrigators rather than to endangered fish, leading to a massive salmon die-off. News reports later indicated Vice President Dick Cheney masterminded the Klamath decision. It is unknown if Cheney or former White House advisor mastermind Karl Rove were consulted or involved in the decision to concede victory to the Westlands growers without a court fight. In an October, 24, 2002 pre-trial order for partial summary judgment in the growers’ suit, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger noted that there was no dispute the growers continued to irrigate their lands knowing “that their lands would be damaged without drainage.” Wanger added, “There are multiple issues to address at trial, however, regarding the operative ‘cause’ of damage to plaintiffs’ land, whether that damage constitutes a public or private nuisance, whether federal defendants and Westlands are concurrent tortfeasors, apportionment of any comparative fault of plaintiffs, and whether plaintiffs[] consented to or assumed the risk of a nuisance or trespass by demanding water deliveries to their farmlands, despite the knowledge that no drainage facility existed.” (Emphasis added.) In other words, a jury or a judge may have found the growers knowingly ruined their own lands and might not have awarded them a cent in damages. But Raley, as already noted, pre-empted any jury determination of those issues and, contrary to the Justice Department attorneys’ written arguments, settled. 

Under the settlement, the federal government was to pay $107 million to have the farmers’ lawsuit dismissed. Westlands had to spend $32 million to settle its part of the case, buying 34,000 acres of the plaintiff’s ruined land and retiring it. “We weren’t batting a thousand with this court,” Raley claimed in a 2002 interview with the Sacramento Bee. “They were claiming that we had damaged them, damages in excess of $400 million.” Raley did not mention Westlands officials had signed the April 1985 agreement assuming liability for all such lawsuits or that his own government attorneys thought they had a good case and could win in court. Rep. George Miller and environmental activists howled at the settlement, which they warned would be used as a precedent for the still unsolved drainage problem facing the Western San Joaquin Valley.Having given away $107 million in taxpayer money, Raley returned to private practice representing water districts in December of 2004. Following the 2002 settlement (in which the federal government admitted no wrongdoing), Westlands worked on getting a new long-term water delivery contract and pressuring Reclamation to come up with a drainage solution because a district court, and then the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, had ruled Reclamation had a legal obligation to try and complete a drainage system for Westlands. 

Westlands growers had a powerful ally in Jason Peltier,a native Californian and deputy secretary at Interior who was the Administration’s point man on western water issues and was a former lobbyist for Westlands and other California federal irrigation districts. Peltier claimed in news interviews he had nothing to do with matters involving Westlands. However, Westlands recently hired Peltier at an undisclosed salary. A former regional Reclamation official, Susan Ramos, has also been hired by Westlands. Which brings us to the present. Westlands general manager and general counsel Tom Birmingham is now pushing a “global” settlement to the outstanding drainage lawsuits (filed by water districts downslope from Westlands) and Westlands’ desire for a long-term secure water supply. In recent closed door meetings with Sen. Dianne Feinstein,Valley congressmen Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa (who represents the Westlands area), Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Hamilton Candee and a few others, the various stakeholders have tried to work out a deal. The news media is not permitted to cover these talks while decisions are made involving billions of taxpayer dollars.

Bennett Raley

Government: Assistant Secretary of Water and Science, Department of the Interior

• • Industry: Previously a water and property rights lawyer; member of Wise Use Movement front groups.
  • "A longtime, extremist 'corporate rights' advocate who previously lobbied to kill our nation's Clean Water Act, Raley now is the top official in charge of water issues at the interior department. In 2002, he teamed up with Karl Rove in a flagrant political maneuver to provide extra water for agribusiness from a federal water project in eastern Washington, even though agency scientists warned that this would be disastrous for wild salmon under federal protections in the Klamath River. Career agency professionals were forced to bow to White House political pressure, and thousands of fish died. When responsible officials tried to divert some of the Klamath basin water back to the endangered salmon populations, Raley again waved in Rove to apply top-heavy political pressure and back them off."[21]

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Bennett W. Raley is a shareholder with the Denver law firm of Trout, Raley, Montaño, Witwer and Freeman, P.C.  His practice specializes in state and federal court litigation, and federal administrative and legislative strategy.  Mr. Raley has practiced in the fields of water law and related federal environmental laws since 1983. He served as the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, Department of the Interior, for the years 2001-2004.  His responsibilities as Assistant Secretary included the development and execution of legal strategies relating to the operation of federal water projects throughout the West.  He has both state and federal court experience, as well as extensive experience in working with state and federal agencies. 

Legal Experience

Trout, Raley, Montaño, Witwer & Freeman, P.C., Colorado Shareholder.  Natural resources firm with emphasis in water and environmental law and litigation.  (Formerly Hobbs, Trout & Raley, P.C., Hobbs & Trout, P.C., Trout & Raley, P.C., and Trout, Witwer & Freeman, P.C.)  (2004-present; prior 1992-2001) 

Current work includes representation of Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and its Municipal Subdistrict on a wide range of matters, including legal support for ongoing operation of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project and the Windy Gap Projects, permitting and negotiation of a Carriage Contract for the Windy Gap Firming Project, general Reclamation law matters, ESA-related legislation in the United States Congress, interstate compact strategy development, and participation in negotiations between the Seven Basin States of the Colorado River and participation in the Basin States discussions with the Department of the Interior regarding the 1944 Mexican Treaty.  Mr. Raley also represents the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association in Endangered Species Act and NEPA litigation regarding the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. 

Special Assistant Attorney General, State of New Mexico (1998-2001). Litigation counsel in federal court Endangered Species Act litigation; strategy related to federal and interstate issues on the Rio Grande and Pecos River. 

Special Assistant Attorney General, State of New Mexico (2011-present).  Litigation Counsel in federal court litigation relating to the operation of the Rio Grande Project and implementation of Rio Grande Compact. 

Chief Counsel, United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.  Leave of absence for 100 days of the Contract with America, 104th Congress (1995).     

Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, Department of InteriorResponsible for United States Geological Survey and Bureau of Reclamation.  Responsibilities included budget and policy for Reclamation and USGS; lead federal negotiator for Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement of 2003; finalization ofLower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Plan; Administration lead for CalFed Process; development and implementation of Water 2025; Grand Canyon Adaptive Management Program, including approval and implementation of 2004 Grand Canyon Experimental Flow Program; BET HE ~?Reclamation response to 11 September 2001; initiation of NRC review of Construction Management and other functions of Reclamation; development of first Reclamation Section 7 Handbook.  (2001-2004) 

Staff Counsel, United States Senator Hank Brown,102nd Congress Responsibilities included preparation of analysis and questions relating to privacy, reproductive rights, and natural law issues for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Thomas to the Supreme Court; preparation of analysis and questions for the Foreign Relations Committee hearings on matters related to BCCI; preparation of legal and political analysis and planning related to wilderness designations and negotiation of wilderness water rights provisions of 1993 Colorado Wilderness Act, Clean Water Act Reauthorization, Endangered Species Act, 1872 Mining Law, and western public lands and water issues.  Responsibilities also included issues relating to S.12 (Cable Reregulation) and Telecommunications.  (1991–1992) 

Attorney, Davis, Graham & Stubbs, Denver, Colorado. Areas of practice included state and federal water quality and quantity issues, mining, real estate, commercial transactions, commercial lending, bankruptcy, and environmental permitting.  Litigation experience included state and federal judicial and administrative proceedings, multi-week trials, complex federal court litigation involving over 50 parties and 6 interrelated matters, preparation of appellate briefs in state and federal courts, and oral argument before state and federal district courts, and the Colorado Supreme Court.  (Partner, January 1990 – June, 1991.  Associate, May 1983 – December 1989.)

omb watch

Bennet William Raley will be the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Department of Interior. His duties will include development, management, and conservation of the nation's water supply. According to Earthjustice's research (provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy Research and White House Watch) done on Raley, he has been a member of the Defenders of Property Rights Attorney Network, a Washington-based legal foundation dedicated entirely to property rights matters. DPR's primary goal has been to promote "takings" laws, which threaten to make environmental laws and regulations prohibitively expensive by requiring payments to private landowners and others who might be affected by regulations.

According to Earthjustice, Raley lobbied against a 1994 Clean Water Act Reauthorization bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and the late John Chafee (R-RI). The bill would have set new guidelines for states on controlling polluted runoff, and Raley contended that the new pollution rules violated states' rights. Raley also testified on behalf of theNational Water Resources Associationin support of Rep. Don Young's (R-AL) Endangered Species Act reform bill**(H.R. 3160 - 106th)**. The proposed legislation would have limited citizen suits against ESA violators, generally weakened ESA enforcement provisions, required economic analyses before listing species, and allowed damaging activities to proceed under certain circumstances. NWRA is a member of theNational Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, an association formed by utility, logging, development, and mining corporations with financial interests in weakening the ESA.

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Endangered_Species_Act_Reform_Coalition

According to the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) they are "a broad based coalition of roughly 150 member organizations, representing millions of individuals across the United States, that is dedicated to bringing balance back to the Endangered Species Act. [Their] membership includes rural irrigators, municipalities, farmers, electric utilities and many other individuals and organizations that are directly affected by the ESA." [1]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Personnel
• 2 History
• 3 Funding
• 4 Contact information
• 5 External links

Personnel

The Chairman of NESARC is James McClure who was described in a Salt Lake Tribune article as "A former Senator (R-ID), McClure is now part of the Washington lobbying and consulting firm McClure, Gerard and Neuenschwander. This firm helped write the federal law on storingradioactive waste and has been paid more than $1 million to lobby Congress to support dumping spent nuclear reactor fuel in Utah." [2]

History

Founded in 1991, the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) is an industry front group whose goal is to "reform" protections under the Endangered Species Act, making them more industry friendly.

NESARC's methods of "balancing" the Endangered Species Act include lobbying, "supporting" Congressional members who favor weakening the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and running a media and public relations campaign for ESA rollbacks.

NESARC has strong ties to Van Ness Feldman, a lobbying group they paid $80,000 in 2000 and $80,000 in 1999, and to McClure, Gerard & Neuenschwander Inc (NESARC Chairman James McClure's firm), whom they paid $80,000 in 2000. These groups represent gas, mining, utility and oil interests. [3]

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), "NESARC's offices are located just one floor down from the Washington, DC lobbying offices of Van Ness Feldman. Though separated by a floor, the two organizations share a fax number - Van Ness Feldman's other clients include a wide array of petroleum and utility companies, National Wetlands Coalition- a similar "astroturf" anti-wetland protection group, and other resource and development corporations. Former Idaho Republican Senator James McClure's firm represents mining, agriculture, irrigation, and power companies, including the National Mining Association(represented by McClure himself) and controversial mining companies such as Placer Dome and Battle Mountain Gold (Washington Representatives, 1999)."

In addition, the EWG states, "the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition:

• Supports Rep. Don Young's H.R. 3160, introduced in October 1999, which is billed as "Common Sense Protections for ESA". The bill requires an economic analysis before listing a species, including calculations of "costs to the private sector", would allow damaging activity to proceed under certain circumstances, would limit citizen suits against ESA violators, and would generally weaken ESA enforcement and provisions.

• Believes the ESA does not "properly balance the nation's goal of protecting endangered species with the national goals of continued economic growth, the provision of water, electricity, and other basic services and the recognition of private, state and local property rights" and believe the ESA is having "an increasingly adverse impact on power development and transmission projects and on the development of private property." (NESARC memo, February 10, 1992, signed by David Mazour).

• NESARC apparently drafted ESA-damaging legislation at the behest of Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA). NESARC made the news in 1995 when Public Citizen filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against Gorton, alleging that the Senator asked industry lobbyists to draft a major gutting of the ESA. Robert Szabo, the attorney who represents NESARC, confirmed that NESARC acted at Sen. Gorton's direction: "Senator Gorton laid out his thoughts to us, he asked our help and we gave it to him." Gorton in turn told The New York Times, "I'm perfectly willing to get the free services of good lawyers in drafting my views." In the previous election cycle, Gorton had received campaign contributions from NESARC member PACs and from NESARC's Washington law firm, Van Ness Feldman. Van Ness Feldman, NESARC's host firm, was the lobbying outfit actually credited with writing the controversial Gorton bill (The New York Times, April 12, 1995 and Public Citizen News Release, April 27, 1995). Soliciting draft legislation from non-staff members is against Senate ethics rules." [4]

Funding

The list of over 100 members includes utilities, mining, hydropower, and development groups with a financial interest in seeing the Endangered Species Act weakened. As of January 2004 members include the:

• American Farm Bureau Federation
• American Petroleum Institute
• American Public Power Association
• Colorado River Energy Distributors Association
• Edison Electric Institute
• Mid-West Electric Consumers Association
• National Association of Counties
• National Association of Home Builders
• The National Grange
• National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
• National Water Resources Association
• Northwest Horticultural Council
• Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association

The full NESARC Membership List is available at http://www.nesarc.org/memlst.htm.

Contact information

NESARC

1050 Thomas Jefferson Street

7th Floor

Washington, DC 20007

Phone: (202) 333-7481

Fax: (202) 338-2416

E-mail: nesarc AT vnf.com

Web: http://www.nesarc.org

External links

• Christopher Smith, "Private Fuel Storage Pays Senator Turned Lobbyist Handsomely", The Salt Lake Tribune, April 23, 2003.

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