[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 18, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2795-E2797]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO THOMAS J. GRAFF
______
HON. GEORGE MILLER
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay
tribute to one of the great icons of modern environmentalism, Thomas J.
Graff, who passed away last week at the age of 65.
Tom Graff founded Environmental Defense Fund's California office in
1971, and over the ensuing decades, he built a record of accomplishment
that includes landmark reforms to the way we use water and energy.
It was my great honor and pleasure to have worked with Tom for many
years, and my staff and I often relied on his counsel and insights. His
ability to think strategically about policy and politics was unmatched,
and there are very few facets of California environmental policy over
the last four decades that did not feel Tom's influence.
Tom Graff's negotiating prowess and his wisdom were critical to the
passage of legislation that I authored in 1992 to protect the Bay-Delta
of California: the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. And his work
on California energy policy since the 1970's helped lead to the state's
pioneering global warming bill, AB 32, signed into law in 2006.
Over his remarkable career, Tom Graff did an enormous amount of good
for his fellow Californians--and for the planet and all its
inhabitants. But Tom's unique legacy may be the partnerships and
friendships that he formed on the way to his many accomplishments. Tom
was always able to find a way to work together with those on the other
side of the table, and even though his communications skills were
incomparable, he knew that long-term solutions were always more
important than soundbites.
In closing, I want to express my deep condolences to Tom's loving
family, to his colleagues at EDF, and all of those who knew and worked
with him--his passing leaves an incredible void. We will miss his
insights, his creativity, his unmatched ability to find solutions, and
most of all, his warmth and good humor.
I am submitting for the record several articles remembering Tom's
life, and I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the life and
legacy of a great friend and environmental champion, Thomas J. Graff.
[From the Sacramento Bee, Nov. 15, 2009]
A Water Warrior Who Won Respect From All Sides
(By Stuart Leavenworth)
A lion of California's environmental movement died
Thursday. Tom Graff, who helped lead the 1980s fight against
the peripheral canal and blocked the East Bay from diverting
water from the American River, finally succumbed to the
cancer that snuck up on him two years ago.
I feel fortunate to have known Graff for as long as I did.
When I returned to California a decade ago, Graff was one of
many people who helped school me on my home state and its
Byzantine water politics.
Graff, a Harvard-educated lawyer with a degree from the
London School of Economics, was not a native Californian. (He
was born in Honduras, the son of Jewish parents who had fled
Nazi Germany). But he knew more about my home state than
almost anyone you could imagine.
I soon learned that Graff was a hero for Sacramento
residents who care about the American River. In 1971, he
founded the California office of the Environmental Defense
Fund in an attic in Berkeley. When the East Bay Municipal
Utility District attempted to tap water from the American
River, Graff was asked by local residents to file a lawsuit.
After 17 years, they eventually triumphed, prompting EBMUD to
reach a 2001 settlement with Sacramento County on a joint
water-withdrawal project further downstream, on the
Sacramento River. He also
[[Page E2796]]
helped pass California's climate legislation, AB 32, and
spark a campaign to restore Hetch Hetchy, the valley in
Yosemite National Park that is submerged by San Francisco's
water supply.
Graff will be known for battles he won and lost, but he
never was just a ``stopper.'' Throughout his career, he
advised his peers to go beyond mere obstruction. He wanted
the environmental movement to understand the circumstances
that led to projects they might oppose, and offer reasonable
solutions.
His lifelong crusade was for rational (i.e. market-based)
uses of water. By trading water, he argued, water districts
could collectively cope with shortages without building new
dams. While this idea was anathema to many environmentalists
(those who see markets as evil), it sparked a needed debate
in California on the essential value of water and the waste
that can occur when it is priced cheaply.
I spent a day with Graff last April at his home in the East
Bay, after it was clear his cancer couldn't be cured. His
voice was barely audible, yet he still exuded the good spirit
and humor that drew people to him throughout his career.
Graff and I spent most of the afternoon talking about
California politics, the general dysfunction at the Capitol
and new plans for a canal to divert water around the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
We had lunch at Zackary's Pizza in Oakland, where he
impressed me with his appetite. Graff helped kill the
peripheral canal project at the ballot box in 1982, going
head-to-head with some of his fellow environmentalists and
then-Gov. Jerry Brown. At the time, Graff wasn't convinced
that the canal would be operated properly, with adequate
safeguards for the Delta and its upstream tributaries.
When I talked to him in April, Graff seemed to have turned
a page on that old fight. ``We'd be willing to go there, to a
canal outcome,'' he told me. ``But we would want to know as
much of the terms as possible.''
In particular, Graff said, he'd want to know key details of
how water would be conveyed in such a facility, in wet
periods and dry ones. There would have to be long-term
assurances built into the project's operations so that a
change in the governor's office didn't spell doom for the
Delta and upstream water users.
We exchanged e-mails and phone calls, but I didn't get a
chance to spend time with Graff after that long afternoon. So
I have no idea where he stood on the legislative water
package the governor finished signing the day that he died.
My guess is that Graff, with his expertise in economics,
would be distraught the state is seeking to borrow $11.1
billion from taxpayers for various water projects, including
new dams. As he told me in April, such projects should be
largely paid ``by water users, instead of taxpayers.''
On the other hand, I know that Graff would be proud of a
little-noticed part of policy package--one that requires the
state to assess the needs of the Delta as a public trust
resource.
Graff had sought this assessment for years, especially as
various fish species of the Delta went into deep decline. The
new law means that, before any new studies are launched on a
canal or other alternatives, the state must evaluate how much
water the Delta ecosystem needs in various years and in
various climate scenarios.
Those needs, for the first time, will then become part of
an overall management system for the Delta, its ecosystem and
its various communities.
As for the canal itself, Graff would likely want to reserve
judgment on the project until he could closely examine its
details. How would it be designed, operated and financed?
He'd pay close attention to the new Delta Stewardship
Council that the new law creates. Appointees to this council
could determine if the public trust needs of the Delta are
married with the operational details of a canal, or some
other form of conveyance to move Delta water to the south.
While Graff's views on the water package are intriguing to
speculate about, his views on life are more important.
In his final years and months, at age 65, Graff displayed
more courage than anyone I've known with a terminal disease.
He was never bitter, and always encouraging. He stayed in
touch with friends, devoted himself to his family and managed
to keep track of his life's work.
You'll probably hear more in the weeks ahead about Graff's
legacy--both from old friends and adversaries. He died having
the respect of both.
In the world of California water, that's an achievement in
itself.
____
[From the Washington Post, Nov. 16, 2009]
Groundbreaker in U.S. Water Policy
(By Juliet Eilperin)
Thomas J. Graff, 65, who helped transform the nation's
water policy as the longtime regional office director in
California for the Environmental Defense Fund, died Nov. 12
at a hospital in Oakland after battling thyroid cancer for
more than two years.
Mr. Graff founded the advocacy group's California office in
1971 in the attic of a University of California at Berkeley
fraternity house. He changed the way federal and state
governments managed water in the West by providing market
incentives for farmers and other water rights holders to
conserve resources and direct them toward urban areas and
environmental purposes for a profit.
Marcia Aronoff, the Environmental Defense Fund's senior
vice president for programs, said Mr. Graff was responsible
``for putting together the first major change in water law
and federal policy in modern times.''
The idea of upending the principle of ``use it or lose it''
when it came to water rights was radical when Mr. Graff
suggested it in the 1980s, but he persuaded lawmakers in
Washington and Sacramento to let farmers save water and then
sell it to supply urban consumers and critical ecosystems.
Mr. Graff helped codify these incentives through the 1990
Truckee-Carson-Pyramid Lake Water Rights Settlement Act and
the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act. ``Water
policy had been a socialized system based entirely on
subsidies and political considerations,'' said Tom Jensen,
who got to know Mr. Graff while serving as the chief water
lawyer for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
subcommittee on water and power under Bill Bradley (D-N.J.)
in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Mr. Graff's ability to influence the legislative process--
he was dubbed ``the Godfather'' by California Lawyer
magazine--stemmed from his impressive analytical ability,
array of contacts and listening skills, and a willingness to
use tough legal and public relations tactics when needed.
``He was subtle and strategic. He could play at every level
of the game,'' Jensen said. ``He could be a spotlight-
grabbing advocate or he could be utterly invisible, insidious
and influential.''
Mr. Graff was known for writing concise, one- or two-
paragraph missives that crystallized key policy questions. He
once ghostwrote a letter for a member of Congress that
ultimately prodded the Interior Department to release water
from Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam in order to allow the Colorado
River to flow more freely through the Grand Canyon.
Thomas Jacob Graff was born Jan. 20, 1944, in Honduras to
German Jews who had fled Nazi Germany. He grew up in
Syracuse, N.Y., and graduated from Harvard College in 1965
and from Harvard Law School in 1967.
He attended the London School of Economics, was a
legislative assistant for New York Mayor John V. Lindsay and
an associate at a law firm in San Francisco before opening
the defense fund's California office. Defense fund head Fred
Krupp once said Mr. Graff joined the organization because of
the affinity the young lawyer felt ``for an organization
whose informal motto back then was `sue the bastards.' ''
His marriage to Joan Messing Graff ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Sharona Barzilay of
Oakland; a daughter from the first marriage, Samantha Graff
of Oakland; two children from his second marriage, Rebecca
Graff of Cambridge, Mass., and Benjamin Graff of San Jose,
Calif.; a sister; and two grandsons.
A fan of the Oakland Athletics, Mr. Graff liked to say that
not only had he managed to tutor his children in how to score
baseball games with precision but that this training proved
to be invaluable when his daughter Rebecca chose to pursue a
doctorate in statistics at Harvard.
A number of prominent politicians mourned Mr. Graff's
death, including Bradley, who said the lawyer's ``good sense
and judgment guided'' the federal 1992 water law. California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), speaking at the signing
ceremony Thursday for a California water reform law, lamented
the fact that Mr. Graff was not in the audience.
``The reason why I wanted to mention him is because he was
a great environmentalist,'' Schwarzenegger said, ``someone
that was very heavily working for 30 years on preservation,
conservation and protecting the environment, protecting the
[Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta] and who was very
instrumental to get us where we are here today.''
____
[From the Contra Costa Times, Nov. 12, 2009]
Tom Graff, California Environmental Water Pioneer, Dies at 65
(By Mike Taugher)
Thomas J. Graff, the Harvard-educated lawyer who was among
the most influential environmentalists in California water
policy during the last 30 years, died Thursday morning after
a long battle with cancer. He was 65.
Graff, of Oakland, gave up a career at a prestigious San
Francisco law firm to open the California office of the
Environmental Defense Fund in the attic of a UC Berkeley
fraternity house in 1971, helping the organization grow in
the following decades into one of the most powerful voices on
environmental issues ranging from climate change to oceans to
water policy.
Friends and colleagues recalled Graff as exceptionally
smart, interested in the views of others, a master negotiator
and an energetic and forward thinker. He was devoted to his
family and a good friend and mentor to many colleagues,
friends said.
``He was one of the earliest environmentalists to advocate
(that) if water could be marketed and moved more freely, it
would be used more efficiently and we wouldn't need more
dams,'' said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager for
the State Water Contractors, a water industry group.
``You could be arguing violently with him one minute and
hugging him goodbye a half-
[[Page E2797]]
hour later. He was a lion in the water environmental movement
over the last three decades,'' King Moon added.
Graff was born Jan. 20, 1944, in Honduras to German Jews
who had fled Nazi Germany. He grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and
later attended Harvard College, Harvard Law School and the
London School of Economics.
At the Environmental Defense Fund, he was a champion of the
idea of using market forces to improve the environment by
pushing for water marketing in California, and for plans to
cap-and-trade sulfur dioxide emissions in the eastern states
to combat acid rain. ``He was a great listener,'' recalled
Spreck Rosekrans, a water policy analyst at the organization.
``He always got along with people.''
He was also a driving force behind the Central Valley
Project Improvement Act, the 1992 law that reworked one of
California's biggest water projects and perhaps the most
important piece of environmental legislation in the career of
Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
``One of Tom's great insights was in advocating for, and
helping to develop, the water-marketing agreements that
helped bring the business world and the urban water community
on board,'' Miller said last year in a speech to Congress.
Graff was a leader in the political fights against
construction of a Peripheral Canal around the Delta. When the
Sierra Club was debating whether to accept a compromise that
would allow the canal to be built, Graff argued that the
canal would allow San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern
California to take too much water out of the estuary. He sued
the East Bay Municipal Utility District to block plans to tap
into the American River, starting a 17-year legal battle over
the health of the river and the Oakland-based district's
contract rights to water. The utility eventually gave up its
plans to build an intake on the American River and reached an
agreement with environmentalists and Sacramento interests to
move the intake downstream to the Sacramento River.
Graff is survived by his wife, Sharona Barzilay, the
assistant head at the College Preparatory School of Oakland;
sister Claudia Bial of Fort Lee, N.J.; daughter Samantha,
son-in-law Miguel Helft, and grandchildren Avi and Rafael
Helft of Oakland; son Benjamin of San Jose; and daughter
Rebecca of Cambridge, Mass.
A private memorial is scheduled this weekend. A public
service will be scheduled in the coming weeks.
____________________