"It's a very selfish bill," Feinstein said of the House effort in an interview. "It says the farmers get the water, and everybody else be damned."

Feinstein, moreover, denounces Nunes' characterizations of her. Nunes has run ads that say Feinstein "defines hypocrisy," and in interviews he has called her a "liar" whose staffers are "radicals" aligned with "radical environmentalists" and the "hippie generation."

"In all my life, I've never been exposed to this kind of behavior," Feinstein said. "It says to me he doesn't want to work with me."

Nunes replied that he has been perfectly capable of working with Feinstein, including on matters involving their memberships on the congressional intelligence committees.

Cressy added that McClintock "expects senators Feinstein and Boxer to provide the same leadership in the Senate" as she says was provided in the House.

Another scenario is that the California water legislation slides into a broader bill. Authors of the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act used this tactic, by including the measure disliked by California farmers into a politically unassailable package containing some 39 other Western provisions.

"We will continue to look for legislation to attach this to," Nunes said. "I'm not going away."

A third scenario is that Feinstein uses her chairmanship of the Senate energy and water appropriations panel to include a few select California water provisions in a must-pass funding bill. She did so late last year, with a few sentences easing water transfers inserted into a 1,221-page spending bill.

This scenario would lack the public drama, and it might not satisfy either Nunes or environmentalists, but by some political calculations it could be the most likely outcome.

"I'm not adverse to putting something in energy and water," Feinstein said.

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