Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, National Review, Forbes, and other media outlets. Ring’s undergraduate degree is in Political Science from UC Davis, and he has an MBA in Finance from USC. Ring is the author of two books: “Fixing California – Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism” (2021), and “The Abundance Choice – Our Fight for More Water in California” (2022).
California could make a major dent in its homelessness problem merely by reversing some of its most destructive policies. Half of America’s so-called unsheltered homeless live in California. It’s not hard to understand why. Along with having the most hospitable weather on earth, California is a welcoming place for drug addicts, petty thieves, and anyone else attracted...
By Edward Ring
It’s understandable that the people running a state as wealthy as California, with a culture of pioneering innovation going back nearly two centuries, would be inspired to set an example to the world. This negates the argument that even if Californians achieve “net zero” emissions of carbon dioxide, it won’t make a bit of difference. ...
By Edward Ring
The following was a three-part series that originally appeared in the California Globe on the impact of the California Environmental Quality Act on development in California and ways to potentially improve the law. It was written in response to hearings conducted over the past three months by California’s Little Hoover Commission. Edward Ring is a senior fellow...
By Edward Ring
For over 50 years, with increasing frequency, corrupted, careerist scientists have produced biased studies that, amplified by agenda-driven corporate and political special interests, constitute a “consensus” that is supposedly “beyond debate.” We are in a “climate crisis.” To cope with this climate emergency, all measures are justifiable. This is overblown, one-sided, and manipulative propaganda. It...
By Edward Ring
The most powerful and destructive perception in the world today is that using fossil fuels will cause catastrophic climate change. This belief, marketed by every major government and corporate institution in the Western world, is the foundational premise underlying a policy agenda of stunning indifference to the aspirations of ordinary people. The war on fossil...
By Edward Ring
Dams and aqueducts on the Colorado River make civilization possible in the American Southwest. But for the last 20 years, as a prolonged drought has gripped the region, withdrawals from the river have averaged 15 million acre-feet per year, while inflows into Lake Mead and Lake Powell have averaged only 12 million acre feet per year. For the first...
By Edward Ring
It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Travel from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two hours via high-speed rail. California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 1A, authorizing $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to build this so-called “bullet train.” They were told not only that the total cost would...
By Edward Ring
Bryan is also sponsoring a bill to gut California’s 112-year-old initiative and referendum process so voters no longer have veto power over California’s Democrat-controlled legislature. It isn’t hard to figure out who controls everything Assemblyman Isaac Bryan does in the California State Legislature. In the November 2022 election, every single one of the first 29 of...
By Edward Ring
On February 21, the California State Water Resources Control Board waived environmental regulations in order to permit more storage in Central Valley reservoirs. This came a week after Governor Gavin Newsom temporarily suspended environmental laws that prevent reservoir storage if flow through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta falls below 58,000 acre feet per day. A guest opinion piece...
By Edward Ring
Last week, I attended an event in downtown Sacramento produced by an industry trade association. One of the highlights of this event was a plenary session where a high ranking state politician addressed the crowd. The participants shall remain anonymous, because who they were doesn’t matter. What was said, and how it was received, was...
By Edward Ring
Behind any popular mass movement there are often good ideas and noble objectives. Public sector unions—including teachers’ unions—are no exception. Organized labor, ideally, offers collective power to ordinary workers and provides a counterweight whenever business interests become exploitative. How to regulate that balance is a topic that deserves vigorous and ongoing debate, but most of...
By Edward Ring
If at first you don’t succeed, try again. This adage applies well to ideas for new ways to tax Californians. Every election cycle we see new ways to be taxed, and higher tax rates, but rarely will we see a tax get repealed. So it is that Assemblyman Alex Lee (D, San Jose) has introduced Assembly...
By Edward Ring
California’s state government is spending twice as much as it did a decade ago, and by every metric that matters to ordinary Californians, things have only gotten worse. Even without further analysis, this is an incredible fact. California’s state government, in constant dollars, is spending nearly twice as much per resident as it did a...
By Edward Ring
When state ballot initiatives propose new taxes, it’s big news. But while every election features a handful of state tax and bond proposals that get statewide attention, additional hundreds of local state and bond proposals fly under the radar. Fortunately, after each election cycle and once all the votes are certified – something that in...
By Edward Ring