In a February letter to President Obama, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, claimed, as he did in many other venues: "A simple measure that would save up to 80,000 jobs (in the lower San Joaquin Valley) would be to relax restrictions on pumping facilities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers Delta that have caused the regulatory drought that my constituents are experiencing."

In January, the state Farm Bureau reported that, "UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Howitt that the drought would cause a lost of "40,000 jobs, and these are job losses for those who can least afford them in the valley's small, rural towns."