When Los Angeles developer Cadiz Inc. wanted to build a 43-mile pipeline to send water from a Mojave Desert aquifer to Southern California, it hired an army of lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants to help secure the federal government's sign-off. The U.S. Department of the Interior under President Obama blocked it anyway, but Cadiz's fortunes changed after the election of Donald Trump-and the appointment of David Bernhardt, one of Cadiz's former lawyers, as the No. 2 official at the Interior Department. In October, the department reversed course and told the developer it didn't need the federal government's permission to build the pipeline after all.
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