It’s a risk to promote an agenda that calls for practical water projects, and at the same time, calls for practical energy projects. To begin with, the word “practical,” in both cases, is a matter of bitter debate. Equally challenging is the fact that even within each of these communities, water, and energy, there is...
On February 12, the Trump Administration formally repealed the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that gave the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from virtually anything that used energy, including vehicles, power plants, factories, dairy farms, landfills, fertilizer, rice paddies, tractors, air conditioners, refrigerators, etc. Reactions were swift. From CBS News, “an enormous blow to...
California’s high-speed rail project has never lacked for drama, but the challenges converging on the California High-Speed Rail Authority in early 2026 represent something qualitatively different from the delays, cost overruns, and political skirmishes that have defined the project for the better part of two decades. The Authority now faces a reckoning that is simultaneously...
About the time it became inevitable that California was going to lose two major refineries, in May of last year, an alarming study was released by Michael Mische, an economist and business professor at USC. In his analysis, “Ensuring California’s Gasoline Security for the 21st Century,” Mische made a prediction that was widely quoted: “Based on current...
California’s hospitals recorded $11.3 billion in total net income in 2024 — 10% above pre-pandemic levels. The average hospital CEO in the state earns roughly $920,000 a year. And the largest union representing healthcare workers collected $114.5 million in dues in 2024 alone, according to its federal LM-2 filing — spending just 16 cents of...
When Permission Replaces Property Rights, the California Dream Becomes a Dream Deferred For over a century, California stood as a frontier of first resort for the ambitious, attracting those eager to escape old-world constraints in exchange for a promise of radical autonomy. This California Dream was not a byproduct of luck; it was forged by...
When it comes to the water supply in California for cities and farms, nothing matters more than how we manage the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As of 2/09 we were 132 days into the 2025-26 rainfall season which began on 10/01/2025. That’s enough time to get an idea of how delta management is shaping up this...
Public sector unions collect nearly $1 billion a year to control Sacramento. Normal citizens? A trickle against a torrent. TL;DR California’s public sector unions rake in $921 million annually and spend hundreds of millions controlling elections—but there’s a legal pathway to break their grip. California’s public-sector unions are the Colorado River of political spending. Normal...
In debates over water policy in California, a common argument is that if only we managed the systems we’ve already got, there would be plenty of water for everyone. Agricultural and urban use would not have to be rationed, taxpayers and ratepayers would not have to be unnecessarily burdened, and we wouldn’t have to wait...
February 12, 2026 Authored By: Edward Ring, Director, Water and Energy Policy, CPC & Tim Paone, Partner, Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP
Even confirmed skeptics should be impressed at the rapid improvement in the price and performance of EVs. A new 2026 Nissan Leaf sells for just under $30,000, and can charge in 30 minutes. That’s still not competitive with affordable gasoline powered vehicles, but the gap is closing fast. But while we may be sanguine about the...
The U.S. Department of Education announced this week that its investigation into the California Department of Education found that state policies that pressure schools to keep secrets from parents violate federal law. Specifically, the DOE said the “California Department of Education (CDE) is in continued violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)—a federal law...
For the last 25 years, the US Drought Monitor (USDM), a collaborative effort by the University of Nebraska, NOAA, the USDA, and other experts throughout the country, has released a weekly map that shows the location and intensity of drought across the United States. On January 8, for the first time ever, USDM’s weekly map showed the...
Study Finds U.S. Drought Monitor Has Overstated Drought Conditions in California for 25 Years IRVINE, CA — For 25 years, the U.S. Drought Monitor has significantly exaggerated drought conditions in California, providing state officials with the pretext for a range of climate-change policies that have crippled the state’s water infrastructure, devastated farming, and punished its 39...