Visalia Times-Delta from Visalia, California • A7

From the day Republican President Donald Trump won last election, Gov. Jerry Brown has worked to position himself as the leader of the loyal opposition, saying time and again that he will fight for the liberal agenda so popular in California, from same sex marriage to climate change activism. especially vocal about preserving the ability to move on its own to improve air quality and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases most scientists have found are a prime cause of climate change and global warming. So it was quite contrarian when 12 environmental and public interest groups published a report the other day questioning green credentials, rating him as living down to his name: on everything from oil drilling to preventing toxic emissions and promoting an overcapacity of fossil-fueled, greenhouse gas-spewing electric plants. That last may have been the biggest surprise, considering frequent posturing as a champion of renewable energy, especially power from wind and solar sources.

Despite his frequent words, the 12 groups say California now derives of its power from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, while in 2012, just after Brown took office for the second time, the state was getting just of its electricity from such sources. more, the groups charged in their 56-page report, Brown systematically encourages a glut of power plants that sees consumers paying for about more generating capacity than the state will ever need in the foreseeable future. The accusing groups include Consumer Watchdog, Food Water Watch, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Restore the Delta, among others. Restore the Delta has long opposed plan to bring Northern California river water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, while Consumer Watchdog previously issued a report accusing Brown of political corruption. As with past reports like that, Brown has said nothing about the claims against him, thus assuring they have gotten little publicity.

drivel, different press secretary Evan Westrup opined. But the claims in the environmental report appear every bit as solid as those in the previous corruption allegations, the subject of an ongoing investigation by a state watchdog agency. Food and Water Watch is particularly incensed about the apparent acquiescence of Brown appointees in plans of Southern California Gas Co. to reopen its flawed Aliso Canyon gas storage field in northern Los Angeles, even if at somewhat lower levels of gas quantity than SoCal Gas finds optimal. The group noted that sister, Kathleen, the former state treasurer, draws a six-figure fee as a board member of parent company, Sem- pra Energy, saying that makes his actions on Aliso a conflict of interest.

The report also castigates Brown for (oil and gas) drilling and repeating a contention that early in his term he fired regula- tors who tried to delay hydraulic fracking for gas and oil in Kern County until there were assurances that waste water from those operations would not harm ground water supplies often used for crop irrigation. The report claimed Brown is living out his 2012 statement that oil rigs are moving in Kern County we want to use our resources (including) the sun and all the other sources of power. not easy. There are going to be screwups, there are going to be bankruptcies, be indictments and be deaths, but nothing is going to stop So far, there have been no indictments, but former Brown-appointed members of the state Public Utilities Commission have been under investigation since early 2015 by federal and state authorities. The green groups noted that Democratic U.S.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein endorses a state legislative bill to keep Aliso Canyon closed until the causes of the storage months-long leak in 2015 and 2016 are found and fixed. Brown is silent on that bill. None of these claims has yet had any effect on either approval ratings or his policies. No one yet knows if the contradictions cited between his posturing and his actions will affect his legacy, his standing in state history or his prospects in a potential future run for the Senate.

Which means all anyone can do is stay tuned. Elias is author of Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Campaign to Squelch now available in an updated third edition. His email address is CALIFORNIA FOCUS Green groups say Brown has been living down to his name THOMAS D. ELIAS Mexico had a fighting chance against the United States not militarily anyway. But our neighbor to the south has other weapons in its arsenal to retaliate against President provocations.

The U.S. is underestimating the plausible revolt shaping up south of the border and on American soil. not a riotous display of defiance, not yet. asustained nationalist movement by people fed up with fixation on humiliating their country. Mexican government officials have begun talking tougher, while prominent leaders are laying the foundation for their attack.

And the weapons available to them are us, the American people. Yes, strategy is designed to use our court systems, our drug addictions, and our food products and services: Clog immigration courts. directives targeting the 11 million undocumented immigrants, many of them from Mexico, has them terrified. The president also wants to dump deportees on Mexican soil regardless of their country of origin. Mexico accept non-Mexican deportees and has begun financing legal aid for nationals in the USA.

government has sent $50 million to Mexican consulates for that purpose. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leading presidential contender in 2018 election, plans to unveil a legal team of 100 lawyers to help Mexican nationals with deportation proceedings. Lopez Obrador is the head of the leftist MORENA movement and is touring several U.S. cities to tout, among other things, his strategy to choke U.S. immigration courts to delay deportations.

Mexican senators, too, have voiced a similar strategy. Fight a trade war. There is growing movement in the Mexican Senate to boycott or stop importing corn from the USA. Corn is symbolically important because indigenous people of Mexico domesticated the grain plant. USA TODAY reported that Mexican Sen.

Armando Rios Piter is seeking legislation to require Mexico to stop buying corn from the United States and to buy instead from Brazil and Argentina. But why stop with the $2 billion annual corn exports? In 2015, U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico reached $17.7 billion, including other products such as soybeans, dairy, pork and beef, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those exports are tariffs-free under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada, which the White House wants to renegotiate or end to rebuke Mexico.

Look elsewhere for trading partners. Mexico is looking to Asia, and that is on top of talks reportedly underway with Argentina and Brazil to export corn. Trump suggested slapping Mexico with a tariff to pay for a wall along the shared border. So Mexico can and should consider doing the same. Make us fight drugs alone.

The United States is facing an epidemic of opioid and opiate addiction. The habit of narcotic painkillers overprescribed by doctors often leads to heroin use. And guess where most heroin comes from? Most of the drugs on streets and in American homes come across the Mexican border, according to various reports. The lucrative drug- trafficking business requires extensive distribution networks and sophisticated money-laundering operations. Mexico could shut the United States out of intelligence information, leaving it to fight drug trafficking alone.

The result could be an uptick of drugs and overdoses. This is no laughing matter, but why Mexico consider using it against Trump? Elvia Diaz is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. OTHER VIEWS How Mexico could fight back vs. US ELVIA DIAZ In the 1970s, I spent a year in Hyder- abad, India, muddling my way through 10th grade while my mother taught economics at a local university. For an underachieving kid, the year was an eye- opening experience.

Its high point was tagging along with Mom when she toured the country on a lecture circuit. Her lectures, sponsored by a now defunct cultural adjunct of the State Department known as the U.S. Information Agency, took us far and wide. They also gave college students and business leaders a chance to pepper Mom with questions: Why are American oil companies profiting at the expense of the poor? Why did your government open a naval base on the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia? How can I get a visa to study in America? Iwas reminded of these encounters when the Trump administration announced plans to hike military spending while gutting other government programs. The State Department, the primary vehicle for diplomatic outreach, would reportedly be cut by a staggering What a colossal mistake that would be.

USIA, the agency that sponsored tours, was eliminated in 1999. And what remains of our efforts at diplomatic engagement has been squeezed. Thoughtful U.S. leadership and engagement not only beat fascism and communism, they also exported democracy, lifted a billion people out of poverty in the past 30 years, and produced an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity in the seven decades since World War II. Of all U.S.

war deaths since the American Revolution, only have occurred since World War II. And the vast majority of those came in the long ago conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Even as Americans fret about terrorism, the world has become almost incomprehensibly safe compared with prior eras. Asignificant part of this success has come from diplomatic, scientific and cultural outreach to the rest of the world. At the time Mom and I were in India, it was a penetratingly poor, isolationist nation whose authoritarian leader, Indira Gandhi, made America-bashing a staple of her politics.

Hyderabad, then its sixth largest city, was a dusty, provincial city known more for its past than its present. Today, India has left its neighbors behind economically. It is one of most important allies. And Hyder- abad has become a thriving tech center. Aboy several years my junior at the Hyderabad Public School is now CEO of Microsoft.

Ayoung woman who decided to study in America after visiting the same USIA office in Madras (now Chennai) that sponsored tours is now CEO of Pepsi. Their names are Satya Nadella and Indra Nooyi, and their stories are well known to most Indians. The larger point is this: Global outreach works. It benefits America. It enhances global reputation.

It makes Americans safer and more prosperous. My long ago year in India taught me many things. First among them is the importance of having friends abroad. Dan Carney is a USA TODAY editorial writer. COMMENTARY America thrive alone in world DAN CARNEY OPINION PAGE 7A Editorial board Paula Goudreau, President Pete Wevurski, Executive Editor Send letters to the Visalia Times-Delta, P.O- 31, Visalia, CA 93279; Fax: 735-3399 or email: The Times-Delta reserves the right to select and edit letters.

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