Lawyer again plumbs depths of state water issues

Published online on Monday, Jul. 06, 2009

WASHINGTON — David J. Hayes is once again No. 2 at the Interior Department and No. 1 for California water.

Call it political déjà vu.

After an eight-year absence, the Stanford-trained environmental lawyer has reclaimed both the California water portfolio and the title as deputy secretary of the Interior. The high-profile, high-risk assignment puts him back in the middle of the Central Valley’s interminable fish-vs.-farm water disputes.

“I expect I’ll have to pay taxes in California, I’ll be spending so much time out there,” Hayes said, half-jokingly.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar introduced Hayes as his department’s go-to California water guy at a Fresno town hall meeting a week ago. Beyond serving as what he calls the “chief operating officer” of the $10 billion-a-year Interior Department, Hayes will coordinate the Obama administration’s role in California water use.

When Valley congressmen are unhappy, they’ll call Hayes. When irrigation district officials want their concerns really heard, Hayes is their man. When decisions get made on protecting species or approving projects, Hayes will be in the middle of things.

Unsolved dilemmas are now his problem, including what to do about irrigation drainage on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side. Specific proposals will now float across his desk. These might range from a proposed “Inter-tie” connecting California’s state and federal aqueducts to a proposed $26 million “Two Gates” project that would permit more irrigation deliveries by protecting fish from being sucked into Delta-area water pumps.

“Both projects are on our radar screen,” Hayes said, adding that “we’re going to give a vigorous review” to the Two Gates proposal widely promoted by Valley lawmakers.

California’s complex water challenges have long invited the appointment of special emissaries.

“I’m pleased the president has assigned somebody to California water,” said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa. “That offers a little bit of hope they will actually do something.”

For Hayes, the burden is a familiar one. A 55-year-old native of New York state, Hayes graduated from the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School. Active in environmental issues, and a former vice chair of the board of American Rivers, Hayes was deputy Interior secretary during the Clinton administration.

Between 1999 and 2001, Hayes focused on Colorado River conflicts and California’s Bay-Delta problems, among others.

Hayes returned to the law firm Latham & Watkins after his Clinton administration job expired. There, public records show, he was registered as a lobbyist for San Diego Gas & Electric, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and a handful of other firms.

The lobbying registrations temporarily impeded Hayes’ confirmation for the Interior Department post, as did some of his commentary about Republican environmental postures.

“Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush has embraced the Western stereotype to the point of adopting some of its affectations, the boots, brush-clearing and get-the-government-off-our-backs bravado,” Hayes wrote in April 2006 for the Progressive Policy Institute.

Under questioning by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Hayes conceded his anti-Bush language was “overly florid.”

Hayes’ 11-page article, though, also promoted what he termed a “moderate” Western agenda that included more federal flexibility in dealing with private landowners and avoidance of a “Washington-is-always-right model” of decision-making.

Now, overseeing 70,000 Interior Department employees, Hayes will get a chance to put his stated principles into practice.