Stay Hopeful, My Friends

Tucked away in the Big Beautiful Bill is a billion dollars of grant money to pay for “construction and associated activities that restore or increase the capacity or use of existing conveyance facilities constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation or for construction and associated activities that increase the capacity of existing Bureau of Reclamation surface water storage facilities.”  Interestingly the final sentence of the section states: “None of the funds provided under this section shall be reimbursable or subject to matching or cost-sharing requirements.”

This is a very significant federal investment in western water infrastructure. The need is much larger than this, but this money will help to leverage further investment by state and local participants. The rules will need to be written by the Bureau of Reclamation, and while a new commissioner has been selected, he awaits Senate confirmation which could take months to complete. In the meantime, we need to be identifying projects that will do the most to increase the water supply for the people of California. We thank Congressmen Valadao and Fong who were instrumental in getting this money into the bill.

Recently, the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley put out a memo outlining the opportunities and expectations that Central Valley stakeholders have for both the federal and state governments with regards to increasing the water supply for California. We need both the federal and state administrations to step up and make adjustments to the current regulations and rules that send way more fresh water to the ocean than is necessary for environmental protection.

For decades, California has effectively pursued a policy of limits and scarcity. Whether it was water or energy or land use or population, there was a general attitude that we had to live with less. To some extent, there were benefits to society from this approach. It drove innovation and efficiencies in both energy and water use. But at the same time, that scarcity mentality reduced the supply of the basic necessities that an advanced civilization needs to thrive. This scarcity drove up costs, making California one of the most expensive places in America to live, work and do business.

But there is now evidence of a paradigm shift happening on both sides of the ideological spectrum. On the left, a recent book was published entitled simply Abundance. One reviewer wrote: 

“From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life.”

Another important voice is our friend Ed Ring who wrote The Abundance Choice: Our fight for more water in California. This book outlines the challenges we faced in promoting a water abundance future. In a recent article, Ed Ring outlined “How to add 10 million acre feet per year to California’s water supply.”

More evidence of a shift in perspective is the success of SB72 by Senator Caballero (D-Merced), which establishes a goal for California to develop 9 million acre feet of new water. This bill recently passed the California Senate without any negative votes and now heads over to the Assembly for consideration, where it passed the first Assembly committee 12-0.

These are very encouraging signs that maybe things are changing for the better. We definitely have a lot of problems and challenges in California. But self-government gives us the capacity for correction. The pendulum seems to be shifting. Stay hopeful, my friends.

Geoff Vanden Heuvel

Director of Regulatory and Economic Affairs