Building the Abundant Water Coalition

The Free Money Trap: How Laundered Compassion Fuels a Culture of Abuse and Fraud

The headlines are, by now, a wearying routine. In 2025, a federal takedown revealed $14.6 billion in Medicare fraud, involving kickbacks for allegedly unnecessary tests. In Minnesota, the Feeding our Future scandal saw $300 million vanish from a pandemic meal program, while childcare fraud drained another $100 million via ghost students. California, meanwhile, became the...

By Mark Moses

Federal Options for Large Scale Seawater Desalination

The Carlsbad desalination plant is reportedly operating at half-capacity, basically because it’s less expensive to import water from the Colorado River. That is likely to change, as Arizona’s Department of Water Resources is negotiating with the San Diego County Water Authority to purchase some of the water they get from the Colorado River. The funds from Arizona will...

By Edward Ring

No, Sorry, the War Doesn’t Mean “Renewables” Will Replace Oil

Right on schedule, the climate activists and their corporate backers are capitalizing on wartime fuel shortages to claim that now, finally, we can get serious about fighting climate change. On March 15, The New York Times weighed in with an article titled “How War in Iran Could Remake the Global Energy Landscape.” Claiming the oil crisis could...

By Edward Ring

California on the Cusp

California voters will decide this year whether the state will remain the global center of technology innovation or begin a steady decline. Their choice for governor and on a key ballot initiative will make the difference. The top three Democratic gubernatorial candidates enjoy strong backing from organized labor, including the state’s all-powerful public-employee unions. If...

By Marc Joffe

The Economics of Managing Mono Lake

Along with the California Condor, one of our state’s most magnificent environmental success stories of the 20th century is how Mono Lake was saved. In the early 1980s, after decades of unsustainable water withdrawals from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the lake had declined in elevation to 6,372 feet. The decline was...

By Edward Ring

Rethinking California’s Safety Net: A Call for True Compassion

Imagine ten regular adults pulling a large, empty cart along a flat road. As one participant is injured, the group loads the person into the cart and, with relative ease, continues on their journey. As a second and third person become incapacitated or are no longer able to contribute in a meaningful way, they are...

By Lance Christensen

LAUSD is broke, and the union knows it

After Los Angeles Unified delivered 3,200 pink slips to teachers and employees last month, the United Teachers Los Angeles has the temerity to strike for higher pay. As one of the most fiscally distressed school districts in America, drowning in an $11.4 billion unrestricted net deficit, hemorrhaging students, and still without its own superintendent due to ongoing...

By Lance Christensen

Understanding the New Federal Tax Credit for K–12 Scholarships: Will California Opt In?

Last year, the federal government passed a law that created a tax credit for contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). SGOs are nonprofits that fund student educational opportunities through scholarships. If California opts in, students in the state would benefit from expanded scholarship programs, all without needing to spend any state or local government dollars....

By California Policy Center

The Many Benefits of Dredging the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

The salmon decline in the delta has been attributed to the impact of water withdrawals into the California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal. But something else happened at the same time as the pumps began operating; dredging in most channels in the delta virtually ceased. For the last 50 years, especially in the south...

By Edward Ring

Why Data Centers Will Create Electricity Abundance

There is concern that the energy requirements of data centers will consume so much electricity that demand will overwhelm supply. While this is certainly a possible outcome, the actual impact may have the opposite effect. For starters, while the total consumption of electricity by data centers is significant and growing, credible estimates point to manageable...

By Edward Ring

Report Overview: Creating Opportunities to Bring Seawater Desalination to Coastal Federal Lands in California

Executive Summary California’s water supply challenges increasingly pose risks not only to the state’s economy, but to national food production, interstate commerce, international trade, and national economic stability and security. While seawater desalination is a proven technology used worldwide to expand reliable water supplies, large-scale projects along California’s coast have faced significant regulatory barriers at...

By California Policy Center

Supreme Court delivers major win for California parents in Mirabelli case

The U.S. Supreme Court this week delivered a decisive win for California parents and parental rights nationwide. In a 6-3 ruling, the High Court partially vacated the stay put in place by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the high-profile Mirabelli case. In December, a federal district court in Southern California issued a statewide permanent injunction in Mirabelli...

By California Justice Center

The Asymmetric Advantages of Environmentalist Zealotry

With the world anxiously watching the conflict in Iran, it was no surprise that the first segment in the March 1 edition of CBS’s 60 Minutes featured an interview with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last Shah. The second segment, however, returned to a staple theme of the CBS news team. It presented...

By Edward Ring

If enough people in California agreed on a state water strategy, the political obstacles would be overcome. If every major water agency, every farming association, and a critical mass of environmental groups were all committed to a specific set of policies and projects, then elected politicians would be bound to adhere to those priorities. Regulatory...

By Edward Ring