No. 10: Capitol Weekly’s Top 100

10. Felicia Marcus
California is suffering through an interminable drought, so Felicia Marcus can’t be having much fun: She’s the chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, which puts into effect the orders to curb water use across the state. In fact, Gov. Brown put her on the board in 2012, which means she’s faced drought for virtually her entire tenure. In effect, she and her board have their hands on the tap, and her agency draws close scrutiny from the media and from hundreds of water agencies throughout the state. This is a departure from previous, pre-drought years when the SWRCB didn’t capture much media coverage, although some of the regional water boards did, such as Lahontan (time to queue up “Erin Brokovich.”) Marcus was western director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. She also sat on the Delta Stewardship Council for two years, was president of the L.A. Public Works Board and spent eight years as the Region 9 administrator of the EPA.

Updated Aug. 9, 2016