Pair who know water helping to run House

By MICHAEL DOYLE
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Few men know California's Central Valley water quite like Dan Beard and John Lawrence. Now, they're helping run the House of Representatives.

That should intrigue anyone who drinks, irrigates or fishes in California. Because, when it comes to Valley water, memories are long and feelings pronounced.

Beard and Lawrence now serve as key lieutenants for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As chief of staff, Lawrence oversees legislative operations. As the House's newly appointed chief administrative officer, starting next Thursday, Beard will handle personnel, procurement and other unglamorous grit.

"My job is to get people their paychecks and make sure the computers are running," Beard said. "It's not a partisan position, and it has nothing to do with policy."

Washington attorney Tom Jensen put it another way:

"I'm not sure why anyone in their right mind would want to try to administer the House of Representatives," said Jensen, a former Senate staff member, "but Dan is certainly up to the job, and I have no doubt he'll keep his eye out on water issues, as well."

Beard's new appointment is a homecoming of sorts. Along with Lawrence, he formerly worked for Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.

Miller, in turn, is one of Pelosi's closest congressional advisers.

Yet another alumnus of Miller's office, Steve Lanich, is now staff director for the House water and power subcommittee.

Water-wise, they've already left their mark.

Miller co-authored the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which changed where water goes in California. Farmers get less and pay more, while the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta enjoys an added infusion of water. The bill shifted 800,000 acre-feet of water from farms to fish. Water and power users have also paid millions of dollars into an environmental restoration fund.

Beard, Lanich and Lawrence all played crucial behind-the-scenes roles in writing the 1992 law.

"Dan Beard is a true expert on Western water, and on California water in particular," said Jensen. "He knows the law, economics, politics, players and where all the bodies are buried."

The work helped Beard win promotion in 1993, to serve as President Clinton's first commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. That put Beard in charge of the vast Central Valley Project, the Redding-to-Bakersfield series of dams and canals relied upon by Valley farmers.

But Beard's work antagonized farmers in areas like the Westlands Water District, where irrigation deliveries fell by as much as 50 percent.

"I don't need him," Fresno County farmer Jorgen Clausen said of Beard in the mid-1990s. "Everybody out here got hurt by what that man did."

A former Democratic member of Congress, Rick Lehman, made a point of criticizing Beard. Lehman still lost in 1994 to Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, in part over voter unhappiness with federal water policies.

Beard left the Bureau of Reclamation job in 1995, unhappy with the Clinton administration. He later served as senior vice president of the National Audubon Society and then with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Now 63, Beard said he was retired, playing with his new granddaughter and writing a book on Western water policy when Pelosi called.

"The House is an exciting place to work," Beard said, "and I thought, if I could make some small contribution to making it work more effectively, I would like to try to do it."

With his new job, he will oversee 700 employees and a $130 million budget. Publicly, his water past has not arisen as an issue.

Republican grumbling did arise, though, over Pelosi's failure to consult with them prior to hiring Beard for the job that pays roughly $160,000 a year.

"I do not question the credentials of Mr. Beard," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield. "Will he make a great CAO? I do not know, quite frankly, because he has never come before us."

McCarthy serves on the House Administration Committee, which oversees congressional administrative details. He was not in Congress when Beard, Lawrence, Lanich and Miller were writing the 1992 water revisions.