The Trump administration is urging a federal court to reject a multimillion-dollar claim over water rights from California farmers, in the latest round of a politically sensitive and long-running lawsuit. At issue is a decadeslong case from major farmers claiming that the Bureau of Reclamation has failed to build a drainage system in the San Joaquin Valley's Westlands Water District. Farmers in the district claim that the lack of drainage system has amounted to an unconstitutional taking of their property without compensation under the Fifth Amendment because it has reduced their crop yields. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims put the case on hold in 2013 while the bureau and Westlands worked on a deal, which would have needed congressional approval. But the case was revived this summer at the farmers' request. Reclamation's solution has yet to be ratified by Congress, and there is little to suggest it will be anytime soon (Greenwire, July 21). In its recent filing, however, the Trump administration accuses the farmers of engaging in "linguistic obfuscation" to try to recharacterize what Reclamation has - and hasn't - done.
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