California government appeals to the DC because California government is incompetent.

Like the 1930’s state water plan, California is stymied in its plan to re-engineer the Sacramento Delta for a massive water project. The plan includes building a water superhighway interchange that would allow fresh water to run into the Delta to restore fish habitat, while water also would be conveyed underneath the Delta to Central Valley farms and Southern California cities. But how will the plan be able to surmount the state’s “project killer” environmental law: the California Environmental Quality Act? Is the only solution to have the project’s Environmental Impact Report conducted under federal rather than state law? That is the path California’s High-Speed Rail Project and recent fracking regulations have been taking. And it may signal the path the Delta Tunnels and Bay Delta Conservation Plan will have to take. - See more at: http://calwatchdog.com/2013/10/04/is-federal-intervention-the-only-way-to-build-a-delta-tunnel/#sthash.rjkewQoU.dpuf

We are evidently too stupid to figure this stuff out ourselves. This matches with us being the poorest state in the union, and having the worse school system.