Lobbyist for Saudi Alfalfa Firm Elected as Maricopa Supervisor

An official lately elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, the place he holds sway over an ongoing water dispute, was additionally a lobbyist for a Saudi firm trying to defend its extraction of valuable groundwater. Thomas Galvin, elected within the midterms to the put up he was first appointed to in 2021, lobbied on behalf of the Saudi-owned farming firm, which is utilizing Arizona’s most depleted pure useful resource for overseas exports.

State lobbying disclosures present that Galvin is a companion at Rose Legislation Group, which lobbied on behalf of a subsidiary of the Saudi company Almarai at the moment tapping U.S. groundwater in drought-stricken Arizona and California to develop alfalfa. The animal feed, which is grown in harsh desert environments, is shipped abroad to help livestock on Saudi dairy farms. In 2014, Almarai purchased nearly 10,000 acres of farmland in Vicksburg, Arizona, via its wholly owned subsidiary Fondomonte, spending practically $50 million on the acquisition. The near-nonexistent water rules in La Paz County, the place Vicksburg is positioned, imply that Fondomonte can pump huge quantities of water out of Arizona’s water desk, which has declined by over 50 toes prior to now 20 years.

Earlier than becoming a member of the board of supervisors, Galvin appeared on the Arizona state legislature to foyer in opposition to H.B. 2520, a invoice instructing the Arizona Division of Water Sources to observe the wells and water ranges within the Higher Colorado River water planning space. On the listening to, Galvin informed Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee members, “I’m not certain that this invoice is correct for this time proper now. … I’m afraid that, if this invoice passes, what we’ll be doing is singling out farms and enormous agricultural customers. You would possibly really be forcing farms to launch proprietary information.” The invoice in the end failed, however not earlier than Galvin referred to as residents involved about overseas capital draining their aquifers racist.

“My legislation follow consists practically fully of training land use legislation, and I’m additionally a registered lobbyist with the state together with a number of different attorneys at Rose Legislation Group.” Galvin wrote in an e-mail to The Intercept. “Lobbying just isn’t a serious side of my authorized profession and takes up little of my time compared to my core follow space. Rose Legislation Group is a registered lobbyist for Fondomonte Arizona with the state of Arizona. I’m one in every of a number of attorneys at Rose Legislation Group which might be coated below that registration.”

In response to his function on behalf of Fondomonte and its intersection with the board of supervisors, Galvin wrote, “their farming operation is positioned exterior of the County I symbolize – in reality it’s greater than 100 miles from my district. As well as, counties in Arizona have restricted powers associated to water coverage and are usually not even a water supplier. Maricopa County doesn’t lease state land and doesn’t have management over water expenses or insurance policies enacted by state businesses. I’ll proceed to recuse myself in any case the place a consumer of my legislation agency has enterprise earlier than Maricopa County.”

Water has turn out to be so scarce in Arizona and neighboring states that plans have been floated to pump water from the Mississippi River throughout the nation to provide drought-stricken residents. Fondomonte specifically has turn out to be a flashpoint in statewide water politics, with the Democratic candidate for lawyer normal, Kris Mayes, calling for an investigation and potential sanction on the Saudi firm’s water use.

4 years after Galvin’s testimony, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors finds itself adjudicating an more and more tense state of affairs that pits residents, politicians, and transporters in opposition to one another over who has a proper to water and the way every curiosity group ought to pay for entry. In December 2021, Galvin was appointed to the board of supervisors by the sitting board in a unanimous vote. In January of this yr, Galvin discovered himself in the midst of the standoff, with politicians and residents on all sides of the water divide demanding motion on a water redistricting plan that might have an effect on the value paid by tons of of Maricopa residents, a few of whom depend on water hauled for miles and distributed into tanks under their drought-stricken properties.

After the federal Bureau of Reclamation declared a water scarcity from the Colorado River final yr, Scottsdale — the place many Rio Verde Foothills residents draw their water from — declared that their very own water provide can be off limits to the tenders who ship water to particular person resident tanks in Rio Verde. In gentle of the looming shut-off, residents of Rio Verde tried to garner Galvin’s help to designate a brand new water district that might permit pumping from Harquahala Valley.

Whereas Galvin was quick to help limitless pumping by Fondomonte earlier than he was appointed to the board, Rio Verde residents discovered a much less sympathetic ear as soon as he was on it. Neither the residents who help the brand new water district nor the water haulers who oppose it had been in a position to get Galvin to make a willpower within the course of for weeks.

Because the January 1 water shut-off for Rio Verde residents quickly approaches, Galvin and the remainder of the Maricopa supervisors have didn’t safe a decision to the water disaster, partly because of the complicated and overlapping matrix of regulatory authorities that govern Arizona’s water use. In August, Maricopa supervisors unanimously voted down a proposal to create a brand new water district. Galvin endorsed the concept of a privately held water utility, just like the Canadian-owned Epcor, supplying the water, however some residents are against the development burden and the multiyear timeline that the plan would necessitate. In 2021, Rose Legislation helped facilitate Epcor’s buy of Johnson Utilities on behalf of land house owners and residential builders in and across the San Tan Valley south of Phoenix.

Of the handfuls of firms represented by Rose Legislation Group, many fall below the class of water-reliant industries together with horse breeding, actual property improvement, mining, and fossil fuels. The agency additionally lists conservative political purchasers together with Romney for President, Senator Marco Rubio for President of the USA, and Construct America’s Fence.

Galvin’s election to the board follows elevated scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s affect on American politics and a shifting consensus on a gulf state that was as soon as one in every of America’s closest guarded power allies. A month earlier than the midterm elections, Saudi Arabia introduced a large minimize in oil manufacturing that each politicians and coverage specialists described as a political assault on President Joe Biden’s agenda and Democrats’ electoral odds. After the Biden administration signaled its help for Saudi chief Mohammad bin Salman receiving sovereign immunity in a lawsuit concentrating on the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, studies emerged that Saudi Arabia is contemplating rising its oil manufacturing within the coming winter months.